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No, it’s not a “ripoff.”
If Donald Trump retakes the White House in November, he will direct the U.S. to leave the Paris Agreement — again. This time, though, the ex-president and his allies also plan to make it more difficult for any future Democratic president to rejoin the international deal to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.
Trump’s most frequently proclaimed gripe with the climate treaty (beyond not believing in climate change) is that it rips off the U.S.
“The Paris Accord was going to cost us $1 trillion and China, nothing, Russia, nothing, India, nothing. It was a ripoff of the United States.” [June 27, 2024]
Fact check: This is inaccurate even by Donald Trump standards. In Trump’s 2017 Rose Garden address announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement — the 2015 treaty that united most countries around the world in the quest to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius — Trump claimed that by 2040, compliance would entail a cost to the economy that would approach “$3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million industrial jobs.” As proof, he cited a study conducted by NERA Economic Consulting, which later issued a news release stating that “the Trump administration selectively used results” from its study and that “NERA’s study was not a cost-benefit analysis of the Paris Agreement, nor does it purport to be one.”
The claim that China, Russia, and India would pay “nothing,” meanwhile, appears to be an allusion to the obligation for wealthier nations like the U.S. to direct hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer nations to adapt to the impacts of climate change. As my colleague Katie Brigham said, it’s true there’s controversy around whether China or India, which have giant (but still developing) economies, should either provide this funding or receive this funding. Russia, which joined the agreement in 2019, hasn’t really been a part of this conversation, though.
“I will also immediately stop crooked Joe Biden’s latest ripoff of the American people, his plan to give — listen to this — global climate reparations to foreign nations. He’s going to give billions of dollars, because he’s saying that we have a dirty climate.” [Dec. 16, 2023]
Fact check: The U.S. will not “under any circumstances” pay climate reparations to developing nations, climate envoy John Kerry vowed in front of Congress last year. The situation is, however — and unsurprisingly — more complicated than that.
At COP28 last year, the U.S. pledged $17.5 million to the UN’s “loss and damage” fund, which is intended to help developing countries recover from future climate disasters. While some outlets — including this publication — have characterized this fund as “reparations,” the fund has more in common with other international pledges directed at helping developing countries than calls for climate reparations that hold historic polluters morally and financially responsible.
“We have China that doesn’t partake; we have India that doesn’t partake; and we have Russia that doesn’t partake. None of them partake in cleaning the climate. They laugh at us, how stupid we are. We clean the climate and then their air flows to us from Asia.” [March 3, 2022]
Fact check: China, India, and Russia are all Paris Agreement signatories. But even if they truly didn’t “partake” at all in international climate mitigation efforts, that hardly means the U.S. shouldn’t try to be cleaner.
But let’s take Trump at face value here. When asked to assess if the Paris Agreement gives an unfair advantage to nations like China and India, law professor Daniel Bodansky at the Arizona State University College of Law pointed out to USA Today that “the United States is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world and has higher per capita emissions than either China or India. It is misleading to point the finger at China and India and label them as the real polluters.”
What about the bad air flowing to us “from Asia,” then? This isn’t total nonsense. For one thing, we do all share the same atmosphere; that’s kind of the whole point of the global movement to stop climate change. But more concretely, yes, researchers have found that pollutants from China can make their way to the Western U.S.
Here’s where it gets awkward: “An estimated 36% of manmade sulfur dioxide, 27% of nitrogen oxide, 22% of carbon monoxide, and 17% of black carbon over China are the result of manufacturing goods for export. About a fifth of each of these was associated with products exported to the U.S. in particular,” Scientific American writes. In other words, a lot of that “bad air” flowing to us from Asia that Trump is complaining about is from manufacturing products for Americans.
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State legislatures are now a crucial battleground for the future of renewable energy, as Republican lawmakers seek massive restrictions and punitive measures on new solar and wind projects.
Once a hyperlocal affair, the campaign to curtail renewable energy development now includes state-wide setbacks, regulations, and taxes curtailing wind and solar power. As we previously reported, Oklahoma is one of those states – and may as soon as this year enact mandatory setback requirements on wind power facilities, despite getting nearly half its electricity from wind farms. According to a Heatmap Pro analysis, these rules would affect 65 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties.
Oklahoma is far from alone in potentially restricting land use. In Arizona, the State House last month passed legislation that according to one analysis would lock wind developers off more than 90% of all land in the state. Roughly half of the remaining available acreage would be on Native tribal lands and in or near national parks, which are especially tough areas to build wind turbines. The bill is currently pending before the state Senate. There isn’t much wind energy in Arizona but utilities, who’ve been mostly mum on the legislation so far, have been trying to build more wind and solar in order to wean off coal and gas power. Unfortunately, according to the Arizona Republic, this legislation was reportedly prompted by the backlash to a specific new wind project: Lava Run, a 500-megawatt wind project in the state’s White Mountains opposed by nearby residents.
When asked if the project would ultimately be built, Repsol – Lava Run’s developer – simply told me the company “believes that wind energy in Arizona represents an opportunity to benefit local communities and the state as a whole.”
Republican states have passed legislation to restrict renewables development in certain areas before, so this isn’t exactly a novel development. Florida last year banned all offshore wind projects, and in Ohio, a recent law empowering localities to block solar and wind projects has significantly curtailed industry investment in the state. Wisconsin Republicans are trying to enact similar legislation as soon as this year.
But the sweeping quickness of this legislative effort is striking – and transcends land use rules. Elsewhere, development restrictions may come in the form of tax increases, like in Idaho where the chief revenue committee in the state House has unanimously approved legislation that would institute a per-foot excise tax on individual wind turbines taller than 100 feet without local approval. (The average wind turbine is 320-feet tall.) In Missouri, Republican state legislators are advancing legislation that would create additional taxes for building solar projects on agricultural land, a proposal that echoes an effort underway in the U.S. Congress to strip tax benefits from such projects. And Ohio Republicans have introduced plans to axe all existing state subsidies for solar project construction and operation.
Then there’s the situation in Texas, where state Republican lawmakers are expected to revive a bill requiring solar and wind projects to get express approval from the Public Utilities Commission – a process that fossil fuel projects do not have to go through. The state is the nation’s top producer of renewable energy, generating over 169,000 gigawatt-hours last year.
The legislation passed one legislative chamber in the previous session and environmental activists are starting to sound the alarm that it could get even greater traction this go-around. Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment America’s Texas division, told me that if it becomes law, it would likely undermine investor confidence in developing solar and wind in Texas for the foreseeable future. “It’s very unclear if they could get a permit” under the bill, Metzger said. “If some wealthy Texans didn’t want a solar farm near their ranch, they could convince the PUC to reject their permit.”
Metzger said he is also worried that Texas acting to restrict renewables would produce similar regulation in other parts of the country given the state’s legacy role as a conservative policy braintrust.
“You could have this ripple effect that could end the industry,” Metzger said, “at least in several other states.”
The aggressive and rapid approach sweeping state legislatures has yet to get a national spotlight, so I'm curious how the renewables trade groups are handling these bills.
I asked American Clean Power and the Solar Energy Industries Association if they have any data on the rise of anti-renewables legislation and whether they have comments on this trend. Neither organization responded with data on how many states may soon pass renewables restrictions, but they did get back to me quite fast with comments. SEIA provided a statement from Sarah Birmingham, their vice president of state affairs, noting that energy demand “is rising across the country and we need all the electricity we can get, fast.” The group also pointed to polling it commissioned on solar energy popularity in Texas and a report it just happened torelease in January touting the benefits solar can provide to the state’s revenue base.
ACP meanwhile provided me with a similar statement to SEIA’s, defending renewables and criticizing state bills restricting solar and wind project development.
“Reducing their growth at state and local levels stifles innovation, raises consumer energy costs, and hinders a cleaner, more reliable grid, leaving communities vulnerable to energy shortages,” said spokesman Jason Ryan.
It’s clear some legislators agree with ACP. In Montana, legislation targeting wind turbine height is stuttering after a large cadre of industry representatives and property owners complained it would kill development entirely and kneecap tax revenue to the sparsely populated state. And in Mississippi, lawmakers appear to have abandoned efforts to enact a one-year moratorium on wind turbines for a study on the industry’s impacts on agriculture.
But it’s only March. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how aggressive – and how public – the fight over these bills this year will become.
A conversation with Katherine Kollins of the Southeastern Wind Coalition
This week’s conversation is with Katherine Kollins of the Southeastern Wind Coalition, an advocacy group that supports offshore wind development in the American Southeast. I wanted to talk with Katherine about whether there are any silver linings in the offshore wind space, and to my surprise she actually had one! Here’s to hope springing eternal – and Trump leaving Coastal Virginia intact.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Tell me about the Southeast. What does offshore wind look like there?
The Southeast is interesting. In Virginia, we have a project that is more in the first mover status – the very large Coastal Virginia wind project – which is already under construction.
As you move further south, I would say all of those projects are later stage than what we see in the Northeast. We get a taste of both of those project stages and how the current administration is affecting them. I believe that the Coastal Virginia wind project will continue construction. They’re already a year and a half into a three year phase of construction. That project is expected to be generating electricity next year.
What about the rest?
The rest – no other project has an offtake agreement in the Southeast. North Carolina is getting closer to defining an offtake agreement through the state’s carbon plan process. That’s a back and forth between Duke Energy and the North Carolina Utilities Commission to produce a least-cost electricity portfolio that also gradually reduces the state’s carbon emissions, and offshore wind is as far in that process as we have ever seen in the state. Right now, the utility is responsible for issuing an acquisition RFI (request for information) – it does put the request out there for the developers in the lease areas off of North Carolina and ask them to submit rough estimates for what their projects might cost to be included in Duke’s portfolio. They’re in the process of that and it needs to wrap up by July 1st.
Before we move on to Coastal Virginia, is it your hope this state level effort further south is able to progress through Trump?
Yes. Even in a best case scenario, we’re still looking at a 2032 or 2033 [completion date]. I still think that’s possible.
Have you seen similar conflicts in the Southeast over stuff like wildlife that we see in the Northeast?
We certainly hear those arguments but they don’t come out as strongly. That could be because projects just aren’t as far along as they are in the Northeast – we don’t have any cable landing sites yet. Our projects are all further offshore than many of those in the Northeast, so they don’t come with the same visual impact concerns which is helpful.
I think as we get further in the development process, certainly there will be more conversations around those things but part of what our organization does as well is come in early and try to talk to folks so there’s more information out there for citizens to understand what offshore wind might really mean, what it might feel like, what it might mean for the economy and the environment – before we start choosing a cable landing site. We’ve got a good runway here.
On Coastal Virginia, my concern is that there seems to be enough time for some shenanigans to go on. Is it just your hope here that the project is able to continue without impediment?
I would say hope but it’s also reasonable-ness. This project has already invested $6 billion of ratepayer funds to generate 2,600 megawatts of electricity. To pull the plug on that would mean the federal government was telling Virginians that even though they spent $6 billion dollars to build clean energy development off their coast, the federal government could step in and take that away.
I don’t think that is a reasonable thing to do. So my hope is that the project is able to continue construction and generate that clean electricity for Virginians.
You’ve seen too, a lot of support – bipartisan support – for CVOW. Jen Kiggans, the congresswoman from the Hampton Roads area, has been more outspoken than many in Congress about the importance of the economic value of the CVOW project as well as the need for new electricity and the demand this project is going to help meet.
Have you found in light of the recent election that organizations like yourself are helpful for offshore wind development, and do you feel like more voices are needed to speak out on what the Trump administration has done? We haven’t seen any litigation or blue states in the Northeast stridently or forcefully go to bat yet.
I think there’s many issues folks are grappling with right now and deciding where to put their political capital. Those processes are still under way. There are so many places to focus our attention right now and just a lot on Congress’ plate right now, so they’ve got to figure out which issues they are going to spend the most time on. And what’s winnable for them.
There are a lot of things folks are focused on right now. And maybe that’s part of the plan – spread our people’s ability to speak, or dilute the ability to speak. If you look at the trade associations and NGOs working on offshore wind, we’re working harder than ever. We are consistently looking at, who do we get the message out to about the benefits of offshore wind?
When you think beyond the organizations like ours that speak explicitly to the benefits of offshore wind – could we use more? Always. You can always use more voices speaking out about an energy technology that is very much part of our future, part of our economic and environmental future, and I don’t think you could have too many people speaking out in favor of offshore wind.
If we’re thinking about politicians, right now there’s a lot on people’s plate. The dust has yet to settle.
Here are the week’s top conflicts around clean energy in the U.S.
1. Barnstable County, Massachusetts – The SouthCoast offshore wind project will now be delayed for at least four years, developer Ocean Winds said on Friday, confirming my previous reporting that projects Biden seemed to fully approve were still at risk from Trump.
2. Albany County, New York – A judge in this county has cast a cloud over tax abatement calculations for essentially all solar and wind projects in the state.
3. Greene County, North Carolina – No more new solar farms here, at least for now.
4. Logan County, Ohio – Sayonara, Grange Solar.
5. Fannin County, Texas – The battery backlash we’ve warned you is on the horizon has spread to the small town of Savoy, north of Dallas, where residents are protesting en masse against an Engie battery storage project under construction.