Trump’s actions could ‘take years to implement, if at all’. US President will not derail ongoing environmental efforts

Written by UAE-based sustainability champion George Berbari, CEO of DC PRO Engineering and Author of ‘The Energy Budget’ book.

UAE - 4 April 2017:  US President Donald Trump has labelled Climate Change a “hoax” and the world is still coming to terms with his executive order last week to overturn predecessor Barack Obama’s environmental measures for the US and cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) funding for climate change policies by $100 million.

President Trump is entitled to his opinion, but should he be allowed to decide how an entire country is going to tackle this growing issue? No, is my affirmative answer.

Energy and the environment should be above politics, an argument I make in my recently published book ‘The Energy Budget’. Such issues should not be left to a single person to decide the course of action.

The Department of Energy, in any country, should have a chairman and a board of governors, similar to that of the US Federal Reserve Bank (FEDS). The Fed’s chairman, vice chairman, board of governors do not receive funding from Congress, and the terms of the seven members of the board span multiple presidential and congressional terms. Once a member of the Board of Governors is appointed by the president, he or she functions mostly independently. That is how an energy department should operate and be allowed to govern the use of energy.

Of course, Trump’s actions to repeal Obama’s clean power plants – which targeted a 32% reduction in emissions by 2030 - and remove strict coal mining regulations on an industry that employs 83,000 Americans, could take years to push through as he has to find new acts and policies to replace the ones he is repealing.

Obama’s Environmental Legacy was accelerated in his last two years in office and he did not have sufficient time during his presidency to achieve substantial results. Trump acts will take years to have a substantial impact as any new acts and policies will be years in the making.

‘The Energy Budget’ mapped the greenhouse gas emissions performance of the past 3 US Presidents. During the Clinton/Gore presidency there was a 13.1% increase in greenhouse gas emissions, a minor reduction of 0.3% during the Bush reign and a 7.2% reduction till 2013 under Obama. The last update for the Obama-era was a drop of 5.5% in greenhouse gas emissions during 2014 compared with 2008, so we will have wait and see when it comes to Trump. Presidents should be judged on results, not on rhetoric.

As for Trump’s pledge to reignite the coal industry, coal has endured a fluctuating trend from 1,074 million short tonnes produced in 2000 when George W. Bush took office to 1,172 million short tonnes in 2008 when Obama took office, to 738.7 million short tonnes in 2016 when Trump assumed office. Yet coal and oil still represent the world’s biggest environmental dilemma due to the contrast between their high pollution levels and the lowest cost as reliable and continuous energy sources.

When it comes to tackling the issue of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and the environment, we have to understand the complex nature of energy and our ever-growing dependency on it. ‘The Energy Budget’ set practical measures and a self-financing environmental solution that goes beyond contemporary times.

Back to Trump’s labelling of climate change as a “hoax”, I have one answer to those who deny the science and facts and they are probably a small and dwindling minority: Suppose you are right, does it really hurt to reduce air pollution and protect our resources? From that perspective, the naysayers agree with me that it does not hurt. Suppose they are wrong and that is the majority opinion, what happens when the earth’s temperature rises not 1.5 to 2 Degrees C as agreed in (Cooperation of Parties Paris Agreement) COP 21 but to 3 or 4 Degrees C? Then what?

The majority of people in the US, state governors and major city mayors are actively engaged in improving the environment. Long term, the US is going in the right direction and I don’t believe Trump will have a major impact in derailing that.

District cooling, Tri-generation integrated with renewables and thermal energy storage in terms of hot water or chilled water provide the most economically and environmentally feasible solution that require no state financing but removal of the red tape in the US and elsewhere in the world. That is having a positive impact on our industry and the environment.