Donald Trump, in his first campaign for the U.S. presidency, in 2015-2016, was a climate denier who cried out in political rallies, “We’re gonna bring back coal!” When he became president, he rolled back many executive orders and laws that the Obama administration had accomplished for the purpose of reducing emissions, especially in the auto industry which contributes the most to the U.S. causing global warming.
In doing so, President Trump set the U.S. back so far in adopting renewable energy, primarily solar and wind energy, and the making of electric vehicles that now Europe is ahead of us in making renewable energy and purchasing electric vehicles (though many of them are Teslas, but now made in China) and China is way ahead of us in making and adopting electric vehicles. So, President Biden is on a path to restore what Obama had done and do better.
Right now, even though America’s Tesla is by far the pioneer and leader in making electric automobiles, China makes 70% of all electric vehicles in the world. And they are sold almost entirely in China. Yet in the U.S., only 2% of automobiles sold in the U.S. in the past year were electric or hybrid-electric automobiles. And regarding renewable energy, Europe is way ahead of everybody.
Today, President Joe Biden announced his much-awaited energy and auto policy. He said his goal is for the U.S. to phase out the gasoline-operated, internal combustion engine (ICE) so that half of all new cars and trucks purchased by 2030 will be electric battery operated. It is an ambitious plan. Yet, surprisingly, the auto industry, which is made up of so many legacy ICE auto makers, is not against it. They only say that the realistic goal is somewhere between 40-50% electrification by then, which is not far off from Biden’s plan. In fact, it builds upon California’s leadership in moving toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions by bringing onboard much of the auto industry. Just about everyone worth their two cents now realizes that climate change that causes global warming is a fact and that it needs to be addressed very seriously.
Indeed, the legacy U.S. auto industry has been forced into this by governments, corporations, and investors. When both government and the financial world say electrification “is the future” in the auto industry, as Biden did today, car makers had to listen up.
But Trump never did. Heh, I sympathize with the coal miners for whom the hand writing was on the wall. But really, it has only been a U.S. workforce of about 50,000 people. Biden is right that renewable energy and the electrification of the auto industry will created millions of jobs. Granted, making electric cars requires much less parts and therefore reduces the number of jobs. But then there’s the battery industry, and batteries are needed for lots of industries. The bottom line is that some people are just going to have to transition to learning other skills to find jobs. The government will be helping them do that.
As for Trump denying climate change and yelling, “We’re gonna bring back coal,” he is more and more looking like a guy who could not foresee the future even though the hand writing was right there on wall for him to plainly see.
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