For those who still doubted it, Donald Trump's energy and environmental policy will be consistent with his campaign speeches. “Drill, baby drill!” » proclaimed the populist tribune, a slogan which invites us to drill ever deeper to extract ever more gas and oil. During his inauguration speech on January 20, the new president declared an “energy emergency” to exploit the gigantic American reserves as best as possible and as quickly as possible.
This slogan responds to several ambitions. Providing the population with abundant energy at low prices, a crucial lever to extinguish inflation which has been one of the domestic nightmares of the Biden mandate. “Replenish the country’s strategic reserves”, if indeed they are at a worrying level. And export, flooding the world with oil and gas labeled “made in USA”.
The United States is far from being in a bad position in this regard. The country is the world's largest oil producer. It is not bound by the production moderation agreements which bind the members of OPEC+ – the alliance of Saudi Arabia and its partners with Russia and its cronies – to support world prices.
The Americans are also the champions of gas, which they export in the form of LNG, liquefied natural gas, compressed at low temperature to fill LNG ships. Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Europe has largely turned to LNG from the United States to compensate for the closing of the Russian gas taps. This is how TotalEnergies installed a floating LNG terminal in the port of Le Havre in the fall of 2023.
-The Paris agreement is over
This aggressive policy is in direct contradiction with the objectives stated by the international community. At the end of 2023, at COP 28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the final declaration included for the first time a convoluted formula on “a transition away from fossil fuels”. Is it useful to insist on the obsolescence of this hope?
Logically with himself, Donald Trump will initiate a second exit of the United States from the Paris climate agreement which, since 2015, has set the ceiling for warming at 2°C (compared to the pre-industrial era), or even 1.5°C. The withdrawal he made during his first term came into effect when Joe Biden was elected. The Democratic president immediately canceled it. It will be completely different this time. The US commitment to reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52% by 2030 (compared to 2005) is obsolete.
This sudden change of direction should benefit the country's automobile industry. For the good old thermal engine, not for the electric vehicle. The president thus buried the “Green New Deal”, the American plan to promote green technologies. In the summer of 2022, it was rolled out into the IRA, the “Inflation Reduction Act”, a colossal program to support the industry, worth nearly $370 billion over ten years.
