{"id":450657,"date":"2026-05-20T05:23:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T05:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/450657\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T05:23:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T05:23:23","slug":"green-energy-will-have-the-last-laugh-because-of-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/450657\/","title":{"rendered":"Green energy will have the last laugh \u2014\u00a0because of Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s war in Iran has created the\u00a0biggest energy crisis<\/a> in\u00a0modern history that the International Energy Agency has described<\/a> as \u201cthe largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.\u201d The crisis can\u2019t be spun, no matter how hard\u00a0Trump<\/a>,\u00a0Fox News<\/a>\u00a0and Energy Secretary (and fracking magnate)\u00a0Chris Wright\u00a0try. Because the big takeaway, ultimately far more significant than any\u00a0regime change<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0reshuffling of alliances<\/a>, is that the president has unintentionally kicked off a\u00a0global race to renewable energy<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The irony here is rich: Trump, who has relentlessly called green energy a\u00a0con job<\/a>, is causing it to proliferate.<\/p>\n

The crisis couldn\u2019t have come at a better time, as the costs of solar, wind, and batteries have fallen dramatically. Battery storage costs\u00a0have fallen 93%<\/a>\u00a0since 2010, solar photovoltaic (PV) costs have\u00a0declined by 90%<\/a> and\u00a0onshore wind costs have dropped by 70%<\/a>\u00a0in the same period, making them\u00a0the cheapest energy sources in history<\/a>.\u00a0According to the Sierra Club, more than 85% of renewable energy sources\u00a0now cost less\u00a0than fossil fuel sources.<\/p>\n

With the Iran war now well into its\u00a0third month, countries are scrambling to circumvent the geopolitical tug of war by transitioning more quickly to renewables.<\/p>\n

With the Iran war now well into its\u00a0third month<\/a>, countries are scrambling to circumvent the geopolitical tug of war by transitioning more quickly to renewables. Climate change almost seems like an afterthought as calls to\u00a0speed the transition are now framed as a matter of security<\/a>\u00a0and economics, a strategy to avoid the war-driven upheaval of global oil markets. Wind and solar energy, produced entirely within national boundaries, insures against war-driven supply upset. It also insulates allies from future trade sabotage threatened by a\u00a0president hell-bent on retribution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the Trump administration\u2019s unwavering assault on\u00a0science<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0fact<\/a>, climate\u00a0information has all but disappeared<\/a>. The president has taken unprecedented\u00a0steps to halt climate progress<\/a>\u00a0and bolster his fossil fuel donors.\u00a0More than 1,500 scientists\u00a0at the Environmental Protection Agency have been laid off, reassigned or pressured to retire<\/a>. Today, only 124 remain at the EPA, and none\u00a0of them are assigned to climate science.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that\u00a0Fox News<\/a> and the\u00a0billionaires pushing Project 2025\u2019s agenda<\/a> \u2014 think Koch Industries \u2014 are financially aligned with big oil. But Trump\u2019s promise to fossil fuel donors that he\u2019d kill environmental regulations\u00a0if they donated $1 billion<\/a>\u00a0to get him reelected is not aging well, for him or for them. In fact, it is backfiring, dusting the world in optimistic, spring-flower pink schadenfreude.<\/p>\n

In late April, 60 nations\u00a0representing over\u00a0one-third\u00a0of the world\u2019s economic power\u00a0met in Colombia<\/a> to accelerate their shift away from oil, gas and coal due, at least in part, to the effects of the Iran war. The summit, led by Colombia and the Netherlands, was organized outside normal United Nations channels and processes to avoid the kind of bottlenecking often orchestrated by petrostates. Participants met to draft individualized, national transition roadmaps away from fossil fuels; using more laid back question and answer information sessions, they\u00a0made unusual progress<\/a>. The United States was not invited.<\/p>\n

That allies grasp the existential imperative to bypass Trump\u2019s destructive impulses is reassuring; it confirms that other nations are committed to action \u2014\u00a0and to securing a healthy future for their children.<\/p>\n

But Trump, like a sadist, is obsessed with increasing America\u2019s reliance on fossil fuels, no matter the costs to the environment and people\u2019s health, or the impacts on climate change. His\u00a0attempts to elevate coal<\/a>\u00a0are as economically illiterate and embarrassing as his battle against wind energy<\/a>. The rest of the world, thankfully, has stopped listening. Instead, reeling from oil and gas price aftershocks from Iran, the\u00a0industrialized world is now running toward renewable energy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter<\/a>, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In China, President Xi Jinping has called for a\u00a0rapid acceleration of a new energy system<\/a>, emphasizing massive development in wind, solar and hydropower to safeguard energy security. The\u00a0European Union has drafted new plans to accelerate clean energy deployment,\u00a0specifically focused on accelerated investment<\/a>\u00a0in solar, wind and heat pumps to reduce dependence on imported fuels, while also reconsidering nuclear power as a \u201cstrategic stabilizer.\u201d Saudi Arabia, despite being a major oil producer, has\u00a0doubled its target<\/a> to ensure 50% of its electricity generation will come from renewables by 2030. Egypt is planning<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0transition its electricity supply<\/a>, which is now only 10% renewable, to 45% in just two years. South Korea has committed to\u00a0a goal<\/a> of 100 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. India is now focusing on rapid expansion in solar and wind<\/a> to diversify its energy supply and reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines are\u00a0accelerating renewable projects<\/a>\u00a0with incentives, and private companies in Vietnam are abandoning liquefied natural gas projects in favor of renewables. Chile\u00a0is now facilitating tax credits and supports for\u00a0electric vehicle (EV) adoption<\/a>\u00a0to reduce foreign-sourced fuel dependence.<\/p>\n

These developments should give everyone hope. Even if a ceasefire is announced tomorrow,\u00a0analysts say<\/a>\u00a0damage to the oil industry will last for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Donald Trump, the champion of fossil fuels, set the decline in motion.<\/p>\n

Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency,\u00a0told the Guardian<\/a>\u00a0that Trump\u2019s war in Iran has permanently damaged the industry. Almost overnight, Birol observed, foreign leaders lost faith in fossil fuels, which will cause \u201ca significant boost to renewables and nuclear power and a further shift towards a more electrified future,\u201d he said, which will \u201ccut into the main markets for oil.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As an anti-science, anti-information nihilism\u00a0spreads its rot across the U.S.,<\/a> it is reassuring to know that other nations aren\u2019t similarly afflicted.\u00a0Idiocracy<\/a>, it would seem, is not contagious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s war in Iran has created the\u00a0biggest energy crisis in\u00a0modern history that the International Energy Agency has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-450657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}