Trump to unleash fossil fuels, withdraw from Paris climate deal

WASHINGTON, Jan 21 — President Donald Trump yesterday laid out a sweeping plan to maximise US oil and gas production — including by declaring a national energy emergency, stripping away regulation, and withdrawing the US from an international pact to fight climate change.

The moves signal a dramatic U-turn in Washington’s energy policy after former President Joe Biden sought for four years to encourage a transition away from fossil fuels in the world’s largest economy. But it remains to be seen if the measures will have any impact on production, which is already at record levels as drillers chase high prices in the wake of sanctions on Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth,” Trump said during his inauguration speech.

“And we are going to use it.”

He later signed the executive orders declaring a national energy emergency and withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris climate deal, an international pact to fight global warming. He also signed orders aimed at promoting oil and gas development in Alaska and reversing Biden’s efforts to protect vast Arctic lands and US coastal waters from drilling.

Trump said he expects the orders to help reduce consumer prices and improve US national security.

“We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again, right to the top, and export American energy all over the world,” he said.

Environmental groups have said they intend to challenge the executive orders in court.

Trump has also said he intends to reverse what he called Biden’s electric vehicle mandates, and put a stop to new wind power development.

The Biden administration had seen those technologies as crucial to efforts to decarbonise the transportation and power sectors, which together make up around half of US carbon dioxide emissions.

“We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said, calling windmills ugly, expensive, and harmful to wildlife. “Big, ugly windmills. They ruin your neighborhood.”

Biden’s administration sought to encourage electric vehicle use by offering a consumer subsidy for new EV purchases, and by imposing tougher tailpipe emissions standards on automakers. It also sought to encourage clean energy technologies like wind and solar through taxpayer subsidies that have drawn billions of dollars in new manufacturing and project investments.

— Reuters