How we will trump Trump

I sent a newsletter today with the above subject line to nearly 500 environmentalists, investors, academics, authors, etc. who follow our work. I also elevated four articles to our website--a productive day.

One was a message from our chair, Carolyn Hayman. She’s a really good writer and she’s currently up to her earlobes in utilities analysis. We are helping investors file resolutions at utility firms demanding transition plans for a business model in line with the 2-degree-Celsius global warming limit set in Paris last December. She is working on a 14-page guidance memo to help investors draft resolutions. Anyway, here is her short memo:

"No one really knows what a Trump presidency will be like. Given his ‘man of action’ positioning, we may find out soon. But it’s unlikely to help the world reach its Paris commitments of keeping warming below 2°C.

"But as we’ve begun to focus on the demand side of the fossil fuel market, particularly power utilities, it’s clear that technology is going to trump Trump. Domestic photovoltaics plus storage are likely to be cost competitive with fossil fuel generation within a small number of years, and attempts to hold back the renewables industry in the US will only hand a commercial advantage to Europe, where most countries are already embarked on the transition. China, where air pollution and competitive advantage are combining to drive the transition, is also forging ahead. China decarbonised faster than any other G20 country in 2015.

"Hence, we at Preventable Surprises continue to believe that it’s in investors’ interests to support a transition to a low carbon world in the power utilities that they own, and we will soon be producing guidance that explains why. The election has changed many things, but it hasn’t changed the need for investors to actively address systemic risks arising from climate change.
Carolyn”

In my own research on utilities, I found that per capita daily energy usage averages 6,000 watts in western Europe, 1,500 watts in China, and a smog-inducing 12,000 watts in the U.S. As if that weren’t bad enough, European utilities are well along the way to transitioning to renewables, unlike my former state of Pennsylvania, where coal is the primary source of electricity. With the U.S. burning through fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow (ahem), you would want it to be a leader instead of a laggard in international emissions negotiations. Trump is instead doubling down--American exceptionalism now will apply to carbon policy as well as the other laws of nature that don’t apply to us. I keep thinking there’s no way he will last even a year. Yet how is Pence an improvement?
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