With Trump’s promise last May to end offshore wind construction on day one, his victory has the already troubled industry on edge. “We are going to make sure that that ends on day one,” Trump told supporters at his Wildwood, New Jersey rally in May. “I’m going to write it out in an executive order. It’s going to end on day one.”
Executives and insiders were already nervous at The American Clean Power Association annual meeting, held in New Jersey last week. “We have this conference in October every year and obviously a week before a federal election, that adds a certain amount of energy and uncertainty,” American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet said.
Trump’s historic victory last Tuesday changed everything for Energy markets and Climate pundits, sending both reeling. Ørsted, the global leader in offshore wind, shares plunged in early morning trading on Wednesday. According to a Reuters report, the world’s largest offshore wind developer fell as much as 14 per cent.
Paris Climate Accord
Along with wind energy destabilization, it is believed by insiders that the administration will take immediate steps to – once again – remove the US from the Paris Climate Accord. Trump’s previous administration deemed the agreement as disadvantageous to the United States. “The Paris climate accord does nothing to actually improve the environment here in the United States or globally,” Mandy Gunasekara, Trump’s former EPA chief of staff, had said of the agreement.
In a 2017 Rose Garden address, Trump announced he was planning to exit the Paris Climate Accord in hopes of a new negotiation, “As President, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens. The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.”
According to his administration the agreement imposed, “no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.” The agreement granted China the ability to increase emissions for thirteen years – and India’s participation is contingent on the promise that they receive billions of dollars in foreign aid. Under the agreement, due to treaty’s rules, the US was not able to officially withdraw from the accord until November 2020. On his first day in office, President Biden brought the United States immediately back into the Paris Agreement.
With his victory, Trump’s administration has already signaled it will once again remove the United States from the agreement. Per the rules, they will only have to wait a year before the exit. This will give the administration a full three years to execute a domestic energy policy course of action – without any need to report to the UN or to be bound by its rules.
Trump’s decisive win is worrying world leaders who will meet next week in Azerbaijan – for the UN climate talks at COP29. Speculation on Trump’s plans are already taking center stage and will make talks and negotiations more difficult for those attending. While uncertainty remains, what is clear is that energy markets – especially the offshore wind industry, which relies heavily on government subsidies, will remain volatile.
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