Can Trump’s Energy Pivot End the Transition?

• Since President Trump took office, the U.S. has rolled back subsidies and support for renewables, leading to over $19 billion in canceled wind and solar projects.

• Analysts at DNV say Trump’s policies will only delay, not derail, global decarbonization.
• Despite global efforts, net-zero progress is stalling.

Since President Trump took office, several associations set up to advance the agenda of net-zero in the financial world have dissolved, wind and solar developers have pleaded for help to survive, and carmakers have quietly revised their plans for an electric future—not only in the U.S. Some, however, believe Trump’s presidency cannot stop the shift to alternative energy sources and emission-cutting.

Many have, in fact, been saying that whatever happens in the United States, the rest of the world would remain firmly on the path to decarbonization because it is the only path that makes sense and ensures affordable and reliable energy—at some point in the distant future. For the time being, the alternative energy that is hoped to replace hydrocarbons still needs a lot of support from governments in the form of subsidies and special legislation aimed at encouraging its growth.

What Trump has done in the U.S. is remove a lot of that support, essentially leaving industries such as wind and solar power, and electric vehicles, to try and survive on their own, without the crutches of government help. It seems this is not the easiest thing. Indeed, since Trump took office, some $19 billion worth of wind and solar projects have been canceled, consultancy Atlas Public Policy reported in August.

Norwegian consultancy DNV, however, says that what the U.S. does with its energy policy would only have a marginal effect on the rest of the world in terms of transition progress. All that Trump’s second term in office would do is delay the emission decline that would have otherwise taken less, DNV said in a report this week. Meanwhile, China continues breaking records in wind and solar deployment, the consultancy went on to say, noting that it has this year accounted for 56% of new solar capacity additions and 60% of new wind capacity globally.

It may be interesting to note here that China’s emissions have been surging since the start of the new millennium, with the annual total of 2001 at 2.92 tons per capita, rising to 8.37 tons per capita by 2023. What’s more, China’s emissions continued rising strongly while it was deploying record amounts of wind and solar capacity and only stopped growing this year, at least according to Carbon Brief. The net-zero advocacy reported earlier this year that China’s emissions of carbon dioxide fell by 1.6% on the year over the first quarter of 2025 and by 1% over the 12 months to May 2025.

DNV sounded a note of confidence in its report, with the company’s group CEO saying that “The global energy transition is not stalling — it is evolving, with momentum shifting to regions that are doubling down on clean technologies. Security has become the dominant driver of energy policy, and as our forecast shows, this is in sum accelerating the shift to renewables.”

However, the progress of the transition in one of the most pro-transition parts of the world—Europe—is stalling, despite the doubling down on net-zero targets and priorities. Some have blamed the effect of the U.S. tariffs, others point to supply chain problems, and many blame insufficient grid upgrade investments and red tape but the fact remains that the shift from oil and gas to wind and solar is slowing down—not only in Europe.

The International Renewable Energy Agency reported earlier this month that global net-zero progress has stalled. Global renewable capacity additions hit 582 GW in 2024, but the so-called UAE Consensus goal of 11.2 TW of renewable capacity by 2030 now implies that annual additions must reach 1.122 TW per year from 2025 onward, which would be a sustained growth rate of 16.6% annually. It would also be impossible to do, based on current wind and solar progress.

So, it seems that the United States’ pivot away from decarbonisation has had something of a ripple effect across the world. But more than that, it seems that those transition critics who called decarbonization targets unrealistic were right.

Related: Saudi Aramco: Underinvestment Could Lead to Oil Supply Crunch

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