Investment trust insider on Trump, climate change and the environment – James Carthew: The renewable trusts in Trump’s firing line
President-elect Donald Trump could row back policies including the US Inflation Reduction Act, which would knock trusts with exposure to tax credits and tariffs
In recent weeks, I’ve been looking at the possible impact of a Trump administration on financials and healthcare. I thought I would round this up this week with a few thoughts on energy and climate change.
I think most of us have accepted that man-made climate change is real and there are ways we can avoid the worst of the consequences, but a bit like the vaccine sceptics that are cheering on Trump’s healthcare nominations, there is still a hard core of resistance to the idea (there’s probably a high degree of overlap on a Venn diagram).
Trump has made a point of ambiguity on the topic, but whatever he believes, his nominations include climate-change sceptic and fracking boss Chris Wright to the role of energy secretary; climate-change denier and fossil fuel advocate Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Agency (he is expected to slash regulations and jobs). For interior secretary (covering areas such as national parks) he nominated Doug Burgum, who will also lead a new National Energy Council tasked with maximising fossil fuel production. Trump will also likely withdraw from the Paris Agreement again, which he feels disadvantages the US.
It may be that Trump thinks lower petrol prices will help him retain the support of his base. However, I am not sure how he will explain away hurricanes, drought and flash flooding when he is the one in charge of the secret government weather machine.
Who’s in the firing line?
Joking aside, this clearly looks like bad news for a raft of companies that were benefiting from Biden’s more planet-friendly agenda. An obvious initial casualty has been… read more here