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Energy Committee Chair Hopes Trump Will "Follow The Money" On Net Zero

Energy committee chair and Labour MP Bill Esterton said he believed Donald Trump would "follow the money" on green energy. (Alamy)

5 min read

Bill Esterson, chair of the energy committee, believes president-elect Donald Trump will want to "follow the money" on energy policy and not bring about a "dramatic" shift in the US approach to tackling climate change.

Trump's victory over Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris in last week's presidential election has triggered concern in the West about the direction he could soon take the US in some areas, including the climate.

There are worries, for example, that the Republican candidate will withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement when he returns to the White House, and that his deregulatory agenda will come at the expense of the country's green ambitions.

However, Esterson, the Labour MP for Sefton Central, is hopeful that a Trump presidency will not bring about a major departure from Washington's current green agenda.

He told PoliticsHome that Trump will "want to be alongside the big energy players" when he returns to the White House and that for economic reasons he is unlikely to abandon the green agenda.

“This is 2024, there's already been a marked shift in energy policy in the United States," said the committee chair.

"Exxon Mobil [energy company], for example, said they're not going to change their plans.

"They're going to continue to invest in renewables, move away from fossil fuels... 

"Donald Trump will, as he always does, follow the money and will want to be alongside the big energy players. And I suspect that just as everywhere else in the world, the markets in America will drive the clean energy transition, regardless of the views of members of the federal government administration.

"There's been for quite some time a desire for investors to not end up with stranded assets in the fossil fuel industry, they've recognized the potential value of divesting and investing, therefore, into clean energy."

Trump and Biden (Alamy)

However, the Labour MP admitted that Trump's victory in last week's US presidential election presented an opportunity for the Keir Starmer Government given the "real degree of stability and commitment" in the UK when it comes to energy policy, pointing to policies like the National Wealth Fund and the removal of the onshore wind ban.

"There is a great deal of appetite from the investment community to support the UK's plans and with a Chancellor [Rachel Reeves] who is committed to stability and getting market confidence and attracting investment from the private sector — alongside the public sector — with the industrial strategy, which gives that degree of certainty."

Esterson said that while there is a "degree of uncertainty" in the US over what the Trump administration's energy policy will be, to major business players it only "reinforces the benefits of investing in the UK because of the stability and the fact that you've got four years at least of absolute certainty around government policy".

He said the fact that Prime Minister Starmer was one of only two G7 leaders to speak at the COP climate summit this week further demonstrates the UK's commitment to the green transition.

"I'm greatly encouraged that we will see the scale of investment that's needed to give the country every chance of delivering not just the 2030 clean power objective, but net zero by 2050," the committee chair said.

Adam Berman, deputy director of policy at Energy UK, told PoliticsHome that while there has been a lot of discussion about a Trump presidency leading to a boost in investment in the UK, the UK must not "rest on its laurels" and must ensure "incentives" remain. 

"I would certainly caution the UK not to rest on its laurels just because there's a Trump victory, that necessarily a lot of low carbon investment will come to the UK," said Berman. 

"We will have to keep making the case to investors that the UK is investable, and keep and keep making our policy structures investable."

Berman said, however, that investment sentiment was "really good" around the Government. 

"That's not an ideological point. This Government has said it is going to move faster and with more ambition through the energy transition into this Clean Power Plan," said Berman.

"As a result, investors are looking more seriously at the UK and that doesn't have anything to do with policy structures. It's just that ministers are going out the whole time talking about the benefits of clean energy, defending clean energy projects, even when there's disruption to local communities. That is what investors want to see."

Adam Bell, a former government energy adviser and director of policy at Stonehaven, told PoliticsHome that a second Trump term provides the UK with an opportunity to be a world leader in energy.

"It puts us at the forefront as one of the economies that is doing the most to tackle climate change," said Bell.

"At the same time, the language that Starmer has been using at COP, which is principally around energy and security, points to a wish to decouple our supplies from parts of the world that are increasingly becoming less friendly, and which might ultimately extend to broad areas of trade as well.

"It is bound up with a broader geopolitical picture: we are becoming green, in part because it's the right thing to do, but in part because it enables us to be more energy independent than we have been for a very long time."

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