Whatever Donald Trump’s victory might be good for, the planet’s atmosphere is not it. True, his economics team is still being selected, and more or less anything could emerge from the maelstrom of personalities and ideologies. Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, by concentrating spending in Republican states, was designed to be politically sacrosanct. Still, the incoming president has said he will kill at least the subsidy for electric vehicles, if not more of Biden’s green spending.
Howard Lutnick, announced on Tuesday as the nominee for commerce secretary with additional control over the US trade representative’s office, has described climate change as a concern of the elitist rich, a category in which the Wall Street chief executive oddly seems not to include himself.
The US turning its back on a technology would once have dealt its global adoption and prominence in world trade a serious blow. This time it’s different. Thanks to the persistent strain of climate change denial in American politics and the short-sightedness of some of its industries, the US is well behind China as the biggest global producer (and consumer) of green tech.