Myth:
Donald Trump is undoing all the good work done by his predecessor on climate change. If America is not taking action, why should other nations bother? Australia, for example, is only responsible for 1 percent of global emissions. That’s nothing.
Fact:
Donald Trump is undoing a lot of the initiatives introduced by the Biden Administration, but not even he can change the economics underpinning the energy transition. The fact is, renewable energy is now considerably cheaper than fossil fuels, and that trend is set to continue. Indeed, during the first year of Trump’s second presidency, 92 percent of all new investment in the electricity sector was in renewables. All the rest was in fracked gas. None was in coal (or nuclear, for that matter).
And this trend is expected to continue. For the first seven months of 2026, the output of utility-scale solar grew by 22 percent, that of small-scale solar by 12.6 percent, hydropower by 9 percent and wind by 5.9 percent. Coal, by contrast, fell by 10.2 percent. This brought renewable energy’s contribution to the US electricity grid to 29 per cent by mid-2026 – up from 22.3 percent at the beginning of 2025, when Trump too office for the second time.
In addition, the US Department of Energy expects another 83 GW of wind, solar and battery storage capacity to be build by the end of 2027. Meanwhile, the generating capacity of coal, gas, oil and nuclear will fall by about 1.5 GW over that same period.
Donald Trump, railing against renewable energy. Despite his efforts, renewables are still out-competing fossil fuels in the United States. [Source: Rawpixel.com]
Sources:
Joshua S. Hill, “Trump unable to stop clean energy revolution, as wind and solar output surges and coal shrinks,” Renew Economy, 28/9/26
The Electric Viking, “America Is about to build more solar in one year than Australia has in 25,” YouTube, 1/10/26, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaHkAIQvOk