The planet may be safer in Trump’s hands than you think… thanks to the ‘X’ factor

The climate change-denying president’s victory cannot be portrayed as anything other than a threat to the environment – or does his friendship with Elon Musk suggest otherwise, asks James Moore

With Donald Trump regaining the White House, is planet Earth going to have to take one for the team? And how will it cope?

The US president-elect infamously described climate change as a “hoax” and, in September, in the wake of the devastation and fatalities caused by Hurricane Helene, “one of the great scams”.

Upon accepting his nomination at the Republican National Convention earlier this summer, he explained his plan to lower energy bills: “We will drill, baby, drill,” he said to wild applause.

Trump has also repeatedly blasted wind turbines, most recently on Joe Rogan’s podcast, describing them as “bird graveyards”. He has also claimed that they “rot” after five years. On the same podcast, vice-president-elect JD Vance dismissed them as “total bulls**t”.

Want more? Trump promised to gut the Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which offers billions of dollars in subsidies for solar and wind energy projects in an attempt to turn America into a green-energy superpower.

Pity the poor Paris climate accords, under which signatories commit to preventing global temperatures rising by more than 1.5C – although earlier this week it was revealed that 2024 is well on course to be the first year that warming limit has been breached. Trump pulled the US out of the accords in his first term before Joe Biden rejoined. It’s likely this game of hokey-cokey with Planet Earth will continue.

All that is enough to make even the most moderate greenie weep. But wait – are we really in need of a job lot of recycled Kleenex? Or is the truth (as ever) more complicated than it might at first appear?

It is, up to a point. Consider, as your starter for 10, that the record for domestic oil drilling is held not by the first Trump administration but rather by that of one Joe Biden. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the US produced more crude oil in 2023 “than any country, ever”.

Trump may well beat that record, especially if he refocusses US energy policy in favour of fossil fuels, as he looks set to do, and tears up regulations designed to protect the environment that Americans live in. Why, then, did Ed Hirs, energy fellow at the University of Houston, in the heart of oil country, tell Reuters that he didn’t think a Trump presidency could slow that nation’s energy transition, which he said was “well underway”?

Politics, baby, politics. Republicans in red states may rail against environmental rules and join in with the anti-net zero chants at their conventions, but they tend to be quite fond of the manufacturing jobs the act has delivered to them, and of the subsidies it showers over them.

Stamping on it may not prove to be as simple as it looks. The incoming leader of the free world could still throw spanners in its works by making life difficult for agencies distributing grants and loans under its provisions. The granting of leases of public land for new renewable projects may also slow, while big oil will cheer deregulation and look forward to getting its own projects waved through.

Trump’s victory cannot be portrayed as anything other than a loss for the planet, given the promises he has made and his past record. But the situation is a bit more nuanced than it might appear at first blush.

It is interesting to note that while shares in America’s oil majors such as Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhilips and Chevron all posted gains, as did the various US stock indices, none of that trio came even close to the barnstorming performance by one Tesla, which makes vehicles that don’t use oil.

Elon Musk’s pride and joy posted double-digit gains (in percentage terms) during the post-election night session on Wall Street, adding billions to its market value and, by extension, the vast personal wealth of its Trump-backing CEO.

The one, maybe the only, person who might be able to temper some of the incoming president’s worst environmental instincts is likely Musk, who has previously described himself as “super pro climate” (on X, of course) while also citing global heating as “a major risk”.

True, some of his statements on the issue have also caused consternation, such as his denying that farming has an impact (when it does). It’s pushing it to call Musk a climate champion, and any lobbying he does on its behalf is likely to be motivated in no small part by self-interest. The Tesla boss’s endorsement of Trump means that the tax incentives enjoyed by electric vehicles, for example, will probably remain. The latter has previously said he would have “no choice” but to support EVs “because Elon endorsed me.”

But if anyone can moderate Trump’s views on this subject, it’s probably him. Elon Musk, the last best hope of the planet? It might be true.