A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that tracks carbon emissions worldwide dropped great news for the United States under the leadership of Donald Trump on Tuesday. “The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis – a fall of 140 Mt, or 2.9%, to 4.8 Gt. US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt from their peak in the year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period.”
Not only is Trump leading the world in economic success but he’s also doing exactly what the climate scolds all claim they want, which is leading the world in energy saving. Carbon emission reduction isn’t the only win for Trump’s policies, the IEA also reported that natural gas is on the rise and coal-powered energy declined by 15% in America. “A 15% reduction in the use of coal for power generation underpinned the decline in overall US emissions in 2019. Coal-fired power plants faced even stronger competition from natural gas-fired generation, with benchmark gas prices an average of 45% lower than 2018 levels. As a result, gas increased its share in electricity generation to a record high of 37%.”
Is there anything this president can’t do? The air is cleaner, the stock market is booming, now, if we could only get him to tear down all the unsightly and ineffective wind farms that do next to nothing he’d be elected president forever. Do not look to the Democrats to give Trump any credit for the energy reductions and number one status in the whole darn world for “green” policies. They will continue to claim he wants to kill the planet and rape the earth of its bounties.
In 2019, The Guardian put out a list of all the terrible climate policies of Trump’s including “departing from the Paris climate agreement summit,” which, of course, we all now see was not at all necessary in order to reduce emissions since the US is leading all of them.
The New York Times gave us this handy chart of the climate rollbacks under Trump, showing that useless and stupid programs can be done away with while still cleaning up the environment. “President Trump has made eliminating federal regulations a priority. His administration, with help from Republicans in Congress, has often targeted environmental rules it sees as burdensome to the fossil fuel industry and other big businesses.” Isn’t it amazing that you can get rid of stupid regulations and still have cleaner air and water?
Screenshot from New York Times website
But according to the NYT, just last December, all these rollbacks would result in dirtier air and more emissions. “All told, the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks could significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions and lead to thousands of extra deaths from poor air quality every year, according to a report prepared by New York University Law School’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center.”
Well, suck it, NYU Law School’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center! The results are in and Trump is winning again. None of the dire predictions came true and Trump has shown that federal regulations don’t equal good environmental outcomes.
Megan Fox is the author of “Believe Evidence; The Death of Due Process from Salome to #MeToo,” and host of The Fringe podcast. Follow on Twitter @MeganFoxWriter
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