Deciphering Donald Trump's Outlandish Climate and Energy Claims

No doubt about it, Donald Trump and his controversial claims have categorically stolen the spotlight that’s been shining on the upcoming US presidential election. The Republican candidate has no shortage of provocative opinions up his sleeve, with some so peculiar that they can be hard to decipher. Thankfully, a panel of experts have stepped up to analyse his remarks on climate and energy policies, and help US citizens understand exactly what he’s trying to say…  

“President Obama has done everything he can to kill the coal industry”

While the coal industry has sustained massive losses over the past few years, the slump isn’t necessarily due to what Trump refers to as the “stupid” regulations introduced by Obama. The real culprit is shale gas, which has thrown the US coal industry into a “structural decline.” Trump honed in on Obama’s clean power plan, accusing the regulations of shutting down hundreds of coal-fired power plants.

“Under my presidency, we will accomplish complete American energy independence”

This is a sky high promise, yet while it sounds great, US chief of Bloomberg New Energy Finance Ethan Zindler maintains that energy independence isn’t all that practical. In fact, some analysts say that it’s downright impossible given the global nature of the energy market.

“President Obama’s anti-energy orders have also weakened our security by keeping us reliant on foreign sources of energy”

Zindler questions where Trump sourced his facts here, as over the past seven years US oil imports have actually declined.

“Whether that’s Obama’s doing or not is another story, but it’s not like we’ve become more reliant,” he says.

“We’re going to cancel the Paris climate agreement”

Regardless of how determined Trump may be, the Paris agreement was created by hundreds of nations, and the reality is that the USA simply doesn’t have the power to ‘cancel’ it. That said, the agreement is incomplete and imperfect, which means without cooperation from the US, goals to slash global emissions could suffer.

Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund warns, “He could delay a range of steps needed to meet the Paris commitments, including not imposing limits on methane leakage, not moving ahead with clean car standards, and not moving ahead with energy efficiency standards. Some of those things will be challenged in court. But even if they were in some legal limbo, he would effectively halt our progress … in what we all know is an incredibly urgent decade to make progress.”

“Wind [power] is killing all of the eagles”

Every year, 83,000 hawks, falcons and eagles are fatally injured by US wind farms. Yet despite this alarmingly high number, environmental experts maintain that climate change is an even bigger threat.  

“I know a lot about solar”

Trump has fanned flames with green energy advocates, criticising solar for being too expensive. Zindler challenges his claims, assuring the public that “We see systems paying for themselves in less than a third of that time in a number of parts of the world.” He goes on to sarcastically add that, “Perhaps he’s talking about a system installed in a very un-sunny part of the world located to adjacent to a coal plant producing super-cheap energy.”

Another hot topic surrounding the run for the White House is LPG. For more insight into the latest industry developments, ‘The Benefits of Thermal Desorption Coupled with Gas Chromatography for the Analysis of Hydrocarbon Residues in Liquefied Petroleum Gas’ is a must read article.