Donald Trump’s energy secretary will be more than an environmental disaster

The president-elect has chosen the climate change-denying boss of a fracking giant to steer US energy strategy. But that’s not even the oddest thing about his selection, says Chris Wright, at the Cop29 climate conference in Baku

When I was young, I wasn’t even the only Chris Wright at my local dentist. I had horrible teeth as a child, but whenever I went for a check-up, I’d have to tell them my address as there were three of us in the neighbourhood.

Even last month at my local swimming pool, I found out that not only am I not the only Chris Wright on its books, but also that staff had the gall to ask if I was the Chris Wright born in the 1960s or the 1990s…?

But the most annoying mistaken identity moment happened this week at Cop29.

I arrived for a keynote speech at the conference in Baku to news that my name will forever be synonymous with the man who could tip the scales of climate destruction and rip apart Joe Biden’s clean energy reforms.

“Chris Wright” isn’t just someone else with bad teeth or a swim centre membership – it is now the name of the fracking fanatic who, in January, will be handed the keys to the world’s biggest oil and gas-guzzling supertanker: he is going to be Donald Trump’s US energy secretary.

As CEO of Liberty Energy, Wright is currently the head of the second-largest hydraulic fracturing company in North America. In 2019, in order to demonstrate its safety, he went on camera to drink fracking fluid, a mix of water and various chemicals that is used to flush out oil and natural gas from deposits deep underground.

I didn’t think anything could surprise me about this guy. But perhaps even more shocking is that, if his appointment is confirmed, he would be in charge of developing America’s energy plans, directing investment and scientific innovation in energy, and coordinating the federal government to energy transition (or lack of) plans.

He may also sit on Trump’s new decision-making “super-council” on national energy matters. Which is a lot of power for someone who doesn’t believe in climate change.

Nor does Wright believe that the energy transition – the shift from fossil fuels to renewable and clean energy sources – is happening, despite him being at the very centre of one of the most transformative energy markets on the planet.

He must surely know how much the domestic gas market has expanded over the last two decades, and just how much the US coal market has declined, perhaps to the point of no return.

In the early 2000s, more than half of the electricity generated in the US was from coal power. Since 2008, that share has dropped dramatically, generating less than 16 per cent of electricity in 2023. Wind and solar power have since produced more electricity than coal, for the first time ever.

This energy transformation has also had a dramatic impact on coal mining in the US. The thermal coal mining sector is largely focused on supplying domestic demand, and has been falling by 5 per cent per year, on average, since 2010. This shift was ignited during Barack Obama’s presidency, but the rate of decline only accelerated during Donald Trump’s first term.

By the end of Trump’s four years in office, the sector was mining less than half the amount of coal it was when Obama took office in 2008, and an estimated 10,892 coal miners had lost their jobs.

The US coal sector is now at its lowest point since the Beatles, thermal coal prices are falling, and a new wave of countries are looking to avoid the stranded asset and climate risks of digging new coal mines.

These are the undeniable realities of the global energy transition. While my new namesake might want to “drill, baby, drill” for oil and is keen to increase fracking for shale gas, even he can’t bring back US coal.