{"id":633668,"date":"2026-10-02T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T00:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/633668\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T00:00:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T00:00:21","slug":"trump-the-environmentalist-how-his-iran-war-exposed-the-fragility-of-dirty-energy-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/633668\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump the environmentalist? How his Iran war exposed the fragility of dirty energy | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the epithets hurled at Donald Trump<\/a> since he became US president, perhaps the most unusual was delivered last week \u2013 that he is, in fact, some sort of environmentalist.<\/p>\n

Trump is the \u201cgreatest gift\u201d to the environmental movement, argued Gavin Newsom, California\u2019s governor, due to the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s woken the world up to how vulnerable we are to petro-dictatorships, how vulnerable we are to disruptions in the Middle East,\u201d Newsom told the Guardian during Climate Week in New York. \u201cThis war has completely gutted any sort of romantic notions of energy security and it\u2019s compelled folks to think differently. It\u2019s accelerating investments and clean energy and renewables.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Trump has been an accidental environmentalist, it\u2019s been in the international sphere. The strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world\u2019s oil and gas exports usually flow, is now starting to open up but has been routinely snarled since the Iran war began in February, causing the cost of these fossil fuels to soar around<\/a> the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Countries reacted by scrambling to cut their oil and gas use<\/a> while turning to cleaner forms of energy such as solar and wind (although there\u2019s also been a small rise in coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels).<\/p>\n

The overall consequence has been a positive one for our shared climate, with global fossil fuel emissions set to drop by 0.5% this year due to the crisis, Carbon Brief has estimated<\/a>. The peak in oil consumption may have been sped up enough to arrive this year, rather than the previous estimate of 2029, according<\/a> to the International Energy Agency.<\/p>\n

A bar chart showing global oil demand forecasts are declining due to Iran war<\/a><\/p>\n

By launching the war, Trump is set to achieve something only dreamed about by climate advocates and not seen outside global economic crashes or the Covid pandemic \u2013 an annual reduction in the emissions that are overheating our planet. The president\u2019s imposition of tariffs and importation<\/a> of foreign ground beef, meanwhile, may also end up hurting the US cattle industry, another major source<\/a> of greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a curious thing to say, but I believe it,\u201d Newsom, a potential contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, said of Trump as a sort of unintentional biophile. \u201cThis moment will mark how we can\u2019t go back to our original form.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the idea of Trump as an environmentalist, even an accidental one, can still appear faintly absurd. His administration has eviscerated pollution limits on cars, trucks<\/a> and power plants<\/a>, funnelled taxpayer cash<\/a> and favors<\/a> to the fossil fuel industry and set about unilaterally cancelling<\/a> renewable energy projects.<\/p>\n

Trump, who has never by available evidence ever set a Florsheimed foot in any of the US\u2019s national parks, has called environmentalists \u201cterrorists\u201d, the climate crisis \u201ca hoax\u201d and has slashed conservation rules to the extent<\/a> you can now kill a protected species as long as it wasn\u2019t provably intentional.<\/p>\n

A motorboat passes an anchored cargo ship in the strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran. Photograph: Amirhosein Khorgooi\/ISNA via AP<\/p>\n

Perhaps tellingly, when asked<\/a> during the 2024 election campaign about his environmental credentials, Trump cited his Florida golf course getting awards for \u201cthe way I built it, for the water, the way I use the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand and the water\u201d.<\/p>\n

Critics say this record overshadows any embrace of clean energy by other countries spooked by an oil price that has hovered about $100 a barrel for months but should, at some point in the interminable Iran conflict, drop well below this. The impetus for quitting fossil fuels could wither when it does so.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s illegal attack on Iran may hasten clean energy in some countries, but he has gutted green tech in the United States and set us back decades,\u201d said Rob Jackson, a climate scientist at Stanford University who said Newsom was guilty of \u201ctunnel vision\u201d in his framing of Trump. \u201cThe notion that he is an accidental environmentalist is wishful thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conflict may have rocked the oil and gas industry but it has also enriched<\/a> it, netting eight of the largest companies more than $90bn in just the first three months of the war<\/a>, with even pro-oil Trump complaining<\/a> that the major fossil fuel firms are \u201cmaking too much money\u201d.<\/p>\n

There is little sign big oil fears a looming obsolescence when this bonanza ends. Last month, Exxon forecast<\/a> that while the world will reduce its emissions, it will still use 105m barrels of oil a day in 2050, up from 100m barrels last year. Two-thirds of the global energy mix will stubbornly remain composed of oil, gas and coal at the midpoint of the century, the oil company estimated.<\/p>\n

A Shell gas station in Shoreline, Washington, on 20 September 2026. Photograph: M Scott Brauer\/Zuma Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the oil that is produced will be burned \u2013 if they produce more, more will be used,\u201d said Juan Carlos Navarro, environment minister of Panama. \u201cThe people who predict that there will be a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases are simply lying or blind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only hope is that the world \u201ccan cap consumption and production at levels similar to the ones we have right now\u201d, Navarro added, citing the enormous energy demand of artificial intelligence datacenters, which are largely being run on gas-fired power.<\/p>\n

However, climate advocates maintain the Iran conflict will accelerate trends that are already swinging behind clean energy. Investment in renewables globally is now double<\/a> that of fossil fuels, almost all new power being added to grids<\/a> comes from clean sources and last year one in four cars sold was electric<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unlike previous<\/a> oil shocks, the world now has a viable alternative to fossil fuels, even if it\u2019s unclear how lasting an impact Trump\u2019s military and trade actions will have in pushing countries towards them. \u201cThere is one thing that all these events are making clear,\u201d Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission said in April. \u201cWe are paying a very high price for our over-dependency on fossil fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Countries from the UK to India to Thailand have sought to speed up the transition to renewables as the price of fossil fuel dependency has spiraled, saving<\/a> billions<\/a>. Electric vehicle sales have surged, although not in the US<\/a>. Trump has urged other countries to reject the \u201cscam\u201d of clean energy but the market is increasingly favoring cheap wind, solar and batteries that have plummeted in cost in recent years, including in the US<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemand has massively spiked for solar and for battery storage,\u201d said Sonia Dunlop, chief executive of the Global Solar Council<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing that all over the world \u2013 the Philippines, across Europe, across south-east Asia, Australia and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Iran crisis, which was, in effect, started by President Trump, has led to a massive surge in demand for our technology \u2026 but actually it\u2019s just building on a trend that was already there,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Political and business leaders can mull the fact that the wind does not funnel through the strait of Hormuz and the sun doesn\u2019t only shine on a foreign autocrat\u2019s lands. The Iran war may not prove a fatal blow to fossil fuels, but it has starkly highlighted their inherent volatility.<\/p>\n

Solar panels near Chinguetti, Mauritania, on 2 February 2026. Photograph: Kang-Chun Cheng\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The case for renewables has become obvious at a grassroots level in developing countries<\/a>, too, where rooftops increasingly glitter with cheap Chinese-made solar panels that are helping negate soaring power bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe price of solar has come down so quickly that there are now 100,000 solar panels installed every day in Africa,\u201d Al Gore, the former US vice-president, said last week. \u201cIn parts of Pakistan, a common bride\u2019s dowry is now three panels and an inverter, instead of 10 or 12 goats. It\u2019s beginning to kick into gear.\u201d<\/p>\n

This momentum won\u2019t stop once the conflict around the Persian Gulf ends, Dunlop insisted. \u201cI don\u2019t think the world is just going to go back to business-as-usual demand of fossil fuels once this crisis ends,\u201d she said. \u201cOnce someone decides to step off the fossil fuel rollercoaster, they\u2019re off it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So does all this, then, make Trump an environmentalist? \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say that,\u201d Dunlop demurred. \u201cHe certainly has his own ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of all the epithets hurled at Donald Trump since he became US president, perhaps the most unusual was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-633668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633668","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=633668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}