The global energy transition is progressing steadily despite pushback from the Trump administration on climate policy and decarbonisation, delegates said at the Financial Times Energy Transition Summit this week.
"Even though you see investment levels [in renewable technologies] forecast to go down a bit in the US, the rest of the world makes up for it," private equity firm Sandbrook Capital co-founder Christopher Hunt said. He acknowledged a slowdown in US activity but noted it follows a surge in investment under the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act. "The forecast numbers are still quite compelling," Hunt said.
Former US assistant secretary of state Geoffrey Pyatt said many had "underestimated the speed, the vehemence" of Trump's rollbacks on clean energy and climate policy. But former energy secretary Jennifer Granholm said the new policy is "not the death knell" for clean energy technologies, pointing to new bills that support biofuels, nuclear and carbon management.
Several speakers noted that energy affordability is top of the agenda for most governments. "This issue of cost and affordability has to be number one," Granholm said, "because we win [on cost with renewables]".
Cheap renewable energy is driving the transition forward, a trio of reports found earlier this month — though Granholm acknowledged the "tension" around reliance on low-cost Chinese technology.
There was broad consensus among speakers that the private sector will drive decarbonisation. "Companies cutting operational emissions are being incentivised by market signals," Pyatt said.
"I think it's inexorable", Granholm said. "I think the data centres themselves are going to drive this clean energy future," she said, although they may "keep their heads down" about using renewable energy. For high-energy users like data centres, "your fastest electron is going to be renewable power," Pyatt said.
Nearly 200 countries will meet next month at the UN Cop 30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil. The Cop 30 presidency aims to make it the "implementation Cop", focused on putting post-Paris Agreement pledges into practice. Several sub-national US representatives will attend, but it remains unclear whether the federal government will send an official representative or delegation.
