"Trump can't get out of the solar revolution"

Editor’s Note: This is a translation of the Klimareporter article "Trump kann aus solarer Revolution nicht aussteigen" by Jörg Staude.

Jörg Staude / Klimareporter, 23 November 2024

For their demand to stop the expansion of the LNG infrastructure immediately and worldwide, the "Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future" are increasingly popular, at least among deputies. There are also optimistic tones on the Trump problem.

Lukas Hammer, a 41-year-old member of the Greens in the Austrian parliament, is in trouble. Hammer is also a member of the Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future – and not only that: He has signed an open letter as one of 130 deputies worldwide calling for a halt to the expansion of the liquefied natural gas infrastructure, immediately and worldwide. The approval and public financing of the LNG projects is also to be terminated.

Hammer is in good company. Among the 130 are celebrities such as US Senator Bernie Sanders or former climate activist Carola Rackete. In addition to 15 MEPs from eight countries, parliamentarians from LNG import and export nations have also signed, including Australia, Germany, Great Britain, Mexico, the Philippines and the USA.

The LNG stop initiative was launched by some of the Fossil Free parliamentarians last year at the climate summit in Dubai and with 25 signatures. The increase in the LNG opposition is worth seeing, at least in its own ranks.

Hammer was active at Greenpeace Austria until 2019, when he became a deputy, most recently as an environmental policy spokesman. It is not surprising that he thinks nothing of fossil natural gas in general and LNG in particular. "We cannot and must not invest in new LNG capacities. In many cases, there are already overcapacity," said the Green politician at an event of the anti-fossil parliamentarians at the World Climate Summit in Baku.

However, the Greens will have to watch relatively powerlessly in the near future as his home country imports more and more LNG. The reason: A week ago, Gazprom stopped its deliveries to Austria. The Russian gas giant was upset about an arbitration award. This had awarded the Austrian energy group OMV 230 million euros in damages.

With the supply stop, Austria will lose 80 percent of its gas imports overnight. For the coming winter, however, there is no threat of gas shortages, the government in Vienna reassures. The storage is so well filled that they last for a whole year.

Climate summit against fossil energies

Instead of Gazprom, OMV now wants to obtain natural gas from Norway and also supply itself from the global gas markets, especially from southern supplier countries.

This will also include LNG imports. Hammer doesn't like LNG from the south much better than Russian gas, said the Greens at the appointment in Baku. Human rights are also violated in southern supplier countries and environmental rules are not sufficiently observed. But it is not possible to give up either - there is currently no way out of the tramp.

When it comes to LNG, the fossil-critical parliamentarians are actually relentless. In their letter, they call for immediate and decisive action against the expansion of liquefied natural gas infrastructure around the world.

In doing so, they refer to various commitments that the states entered into at climate summits. In 2021, almost 40 countries and financial institutions signed the so-called Glasgow Statement. In doing so, they actually committed themselves to stop financing international fossil projects by 2022.

In 2023, the countries agreed at the climate summit in Dubai to move away from fossil energy fuels.

The German co-initiator of the anti-LNG campaign, Lisa Badum, also recalled at the event that a "transition away from fossil energies" was decided in Dubai. Climate exegetes have been breaking their brains for a long time about what this is supposed to mean in concrete terms.

Badum, a member of the Bundestag of the Greens, does not have to think long. For them, "away from fossil energies" means not only a move away from coal and oil, but also from fossil gas. "A large, large gas lobby is currently trying to sell gas as green, renewable and clean energy. That's not true," Badum said in Baku.

Omnipresent narrative of "clean" natural gas

The narrative of "clean gas" is almost omnipresent at the climate summit in the Azerbaijani capital. This is not only due to the numerous industry lobbyists.

Republican US senators in Baku also point out that the energy base in other countries is much dirtier – compared to the LNG from their country. The fact that this gas is now largely obtained by fracking does not bother at all. And if Europe doesn't want it, they're just sending it to gas-hungry Asia.

In addition to the gas lobby, the parliamentary LNG critics will soon have to deal with another opponent: Donald Trump.

What the climate world can expect from the erratic US president was also asked at a press conference in Baku by the democratic US Senator Edward Markey, also a co-initiator of the LNG stop campaign.

According to Markey, the US is aiming to double its gas exports in the next five years. This will also make gas prices more expensive for households in the country, because they de facto competed with financially strong customers in Asia, the senator is sure.

This mechanism has been observed for Markey since 2021, since the USA began exporting its LNG. Since exports have gone through the roof, US households have paid 111 billion dollars more for gas, the senator said. The more exported, the more expensive it becomes domestically.

As for the coming years with President Trump, Markey tried to be sase. He, like others, relies on the persistence of individual US states. California is the fifth largest economy in the world, the city of New York the tenth largest. They could jump into the gap that Trump will tear up, the senator said.

Like others, Markey relies on the fact that a Trump can at most slow down the growth of renewables, but no longer stop it. "Trump can take the United States out of the Paris Agreement, but he can't take the United States out of a revolution that takes place in the United States," Markey said with conviction.

Wind and solar energy, batteries and storage technologies have now created 400,000 new and really "clean" jobs in the USA, the Democratic senator added up. And as you know, the money from the Inflation Reduction Act also flows into so-called Red States, where the Republicans are in charge.

Editor’s Note: This is a translation of the Klimareporter article "Trump kann aus solarer Revolution nicht aussteigen" by Jörg Staude.