As Trump turns his back on renewables, China is building the future
"The U.S. Under Trump: Alone in Its Climate Denial "The Real Reasons for High Oil and Gas Prices "Four Ways Trump Plans to Raise Energy Costs for American Consumers""
By Alan Kohler
Monday 14 July
As America pivots back to fossil fuels, China appears destined to take global leadership from the United States. (Reuters: Damir Sagolj)
A few days after Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill that ended most subsidies for renewable energy, among many other things, the leading artificial intelligence (AI) company, Nvidia Corporation, became the first to pass $US4 trillion ($6.08 trillion) in value.
And a few days after that, on Thursday, Bitcoin hit a new record high above $US117,000.
The data centres that operate both AI and cryptocurrency are already massively increasing electricity demandand investors are obviously expecting them to keep doing so — exponentially.
Meanwhile, the BRICS summit in Brazil last week — it stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa — went in the opposite direction to the United States on climate change, committing to "intensify global efforts to contain global warming".
Trump lies about renewable energy rollout in China. (Reuters: Muyu Xu)
China's renewable energy strategy is paying off
Chinese President Xi Jinping didn't make it to Brazil, but he chaired a meeting of China's Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs which issued a directive to crack down on overcapacity and "disorderly competition" in solar power.
Let's join the dots: America is pivoting back to fossil fuels and pulling out of renewable energy while the rest of the world continues to do the opposite, China is grappling with too much renewable energy while investors are bidding expectations to record highs for the new industries whose data centres are eating the world's electricity.
In his Independence Day address after signing the One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump said: "I noticed something — with all the windmills that China sends us, where we waste our money because it's the most expensive energy, you know they make about 95 per cent of them, the wind turbines, I have never seen a wind farm in China! Why is that?"
'Winning the race': How China plans to meet its 2030 renewables target by the end of this month China's renewables rollout is breaking all the records.
That is a long way from being true: China is bristling with wind farms, and solar farms.
[Insert: Noted Trump said he has never seen a wind farm in China. He has been to China once and easily could not have seen a wind farm there .. http://www.xinhuanet.com//english/2017-11/08/c_136737619.htm . But in saying that his message was China didn't have any wind farms which has to be a lie of his. Diagnostically sick, or not, Trump has to be sick to be the bastard he obviously is.]
Mistake number two for Trump is the cost: wind and solar are now the cheapest form of energy in China, as well as in most other places, and onshore wind is by far the cheapest, less than half the cost of coal.
China's long-term strategy of dominating the manufacture of renewable energy and electric vehicles, as well as critical minerals, especially the rare earths needed in modern technology, is now paying off, big time.
'Real men burn stuff'
Meanwhile, in the US, Trump announced a 50 per cent tariff on imports of copper, which is one of the minerals needed for AI and renewable energy.
This will make it virtually impossible for manufacturers in the US to compete with China in high-tech manufacturing.
That was on top of letters Trump sent to dozens of national leaders last week telling them what the tariff is going to be on their exports to America.
Why would America embark on such a series of colossal, and obvious, acts of self-harm?
Trump poses for a group photo after he signed the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act", on July 4. (Reuters: Ken Cedeno)
The rejection of renewable energy and turning back to coal is pure ideology, a macho rejection of environmentalism and wokeism. As American economist Paul Krugman wrote the other day: "Real men burn stuff and don't worry if the process is dirty."
In his Independence Day speech, Trump declared: "Coal is back. You can't use the word 'coal' unless you precede it by saying 'clean beautiful coal.'"
China is also building coal-fired power stations, but only because it has to; the idea of saying "coal is back" and calling it clean and beautiful at the same time as more than one hundred people were dying in a Texas flood is insane.
Analysis from the ABC's experts [carousel]
“ The persistence of Treasury officials in trying to get an innocuous document deleted served to highlight there was something there. By author, Daniel Ziffer.
“ Jillian Segal’s plan to combat antisemitism recommends giving herself a role in vetoing funding to universities and their researchers. By author, Conor Duffy.
more inside...
Trump's tariff lie
As for the tariffs, the world's economists and trade policy experts are mystified by America's trade wars, but I don't think that's what they are: tariffs are taxes that Trump can say are paid by foreign countries rather than by Americans.
The letters he sent last week all said: "We will charge (insert country) a Tariff of only (insert number) on any and all … products sent into the United States."
That's what he always says when he's talking about the tariffs — that he is "charging" that country, as if it's a kind of fee paid to the US government for the right to sell stuff to Americans, and that the US Treasury is making tons of money from them. It is, but not from the other countries.
He knows, of course, as does everyone else, that tariffs are a sales tax paid by the American buyers of the imported products or absorbed into the margins of the local companies importing them if they can't pass it on for some reason.
The US government is "charging" the Americans who buy Brazilian products a 50 per cent tax on what they buy, not Brazil, and will be putting a 50 per cent tax on copper, as well as taxes of at least 10 per cent on every import coming into the US.
It is a GST of at least 20 per cent on the $US4.1 trillion of goods imported into the US — 14 per cent of total goods sold.
Before the tariffs are fully in place, the US government is already making about $US30 billion in extra revenue and will theoretically increase to about $US500 billion.
Except that Trump keeps saying that American citizens aren't paying it — someone else is.
It is breathtaking, brilliant, political mendacity; the media, economists and his political opponents are getting tired of pointing it out, and he just keeps saying it, proving Joseph Goebbels's dictum that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes true.
The prime minister will meet with Xi Jinping as part of a six-day trip to China this week. (Supplied: Prime Minister's Office )
Xi now more important than Trump
The result of all this is that China — a ruthless autocracy — appears destined to take global leadership from the US, in trade, the means of producing energy and, possibly, in "soft power", or moral leadership, as the US withdraws from foreign aid and multilateralism.
The US dollar seems entrenched as the world's reserve currency and the basis of most finance and trade, but even that can't be taken for granted. It won't be replaced by Bitcoin, but a combination of the Euro and Chinese yuan is likely to eat into its market share.
But Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies are not going away, and the data centre capacity they require will continue to add to the ballooning demand for computing power and electricity from AI.
And while the leader in AI chip design, and now the world's most valuable company — Nvidia — is American, its chips are made in Taiwan, just as Apple's iPhones are made in China.
The American technology companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon still reign supreme over the internet and AI era, but China is closing on them fast.
China is already in the process of obliterating the American and European car industries with solid, well-designed, cheaper vehicles and will almost certainly do the same with all other high-tech products, including robots.
Top UN court says countries can sue each other over climate change
"The U.S. Under Trump: Alone in Its Climate Denial"
Related:
As Trump turns his back on renewables, China is building the future "The U.S. Under Trump: Alone in Its Climate Denial "The Real Reasons for High Oil and Gas Prices "Four Ways Trump Plans to Raise Energy Costs for American Consumers"" https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=176447768
Esme Stallard and Georgina Rannard BBC News Climate and Science
Watch: Activists react to landmark UN climate change ruling outside The Hague
A landmark decision by a top UN court has cleared the way for countries to sue each other over climate change, including over historic emissions of planet-warming gases.
But the judge at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands on Wednesday said that untangling who caused which part of climate change could be difficult.
The ruling is non-binding but legal experts say it could have wide-ranging consequences.
It will be seen as a victory for countries that are very vulnerable to climate change, who came to court after feeling frustrated about lack of global progress in tackling the problem.
[Dorka Bauer A group of roughly 50 people stand outside the Peace Palace building in the Hague. They are holding a blue banner with white letters that read "Courts have spoken. Many are holding placards calling for action on climate change Governments must act now". In the background is a large screen with more activists.] Governments and climate campaigners went to the Hague on Wednesday to hear the court's opinion Dorka Bauer
The unprecedented case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was the brainchild of a group of young law students from low-lying Pacific islands on the frontlines of climate change, who came up with the idea in 2019.
One of those students, Siosiua Veikune from Tonga, was in the Hague to hear the decision.
"I'm lost for words. This is so exciting. There's a ton of emotions rushing through us. This is a win we take proudly back home to our communities," he told BBC News.
"Tonight I'll sleep easier. The ICJ has recognised what we have lived through - our suffering, our resilience and our right to our future," said Flora Vano, from the Pacific Island Vanuatu, which is considered the country most vulnerable to extreme weather globally.
"This is a victory not just for us but for every frontline community fighting to be heard."
The ICJ is considered the world's highest court and it has global jurisdiction. Lawyers have told BBC News that the opinion could be used as early as next week, including in national courts outside of the ICJ.
Campaigners and climate lawyers hope the landmark decision will now pave the way for compensation from countries that have historically burned the most fossil fuels and are therefore the most responsible for global warming.
Many poorer countries had backed the case out of frustration, claiming that developed nations are failing to keep existing promises to tackle the growing problem.
But developed countries, including the UK, argued that existing climate agreements, including the landmark UN Paris deal of 2015, are sufficient and no further legal obligations should be imposed.
Siosiua Veikune, from Tonga, from Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change travelled to the Hague to hear the outcome Dorka Bauer
On Wednesday the court rejected that argument.
Judge Iwasawa Yuji also said that if countries do not develop the most ambitious possible plans to tackle climate change this would constitute a breach of their promises in the Paris Agreement.
He added that broader international law applies, which means that countries which are not signed up to the Paris Agreement - or want to leave, like the US - are still required to protect the environment, including the climate system.
The court's opinion is advisory, but previous ICJ decisions have been implemented by governments, including when the UK agreed to hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius last year.
"The ruling is a watershed legal moment," said Joie Chowdhury, Senior Attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
"With today's authoritative historic ruling, the International Court of Justice has broken with business-as-usual and delivered a historic affirmation: those suffering the impacts of climate devastation have a right to remedy for climate harm, including through compensation," she added.
A spokesperson for the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said it was "taking time" to look at the opinion before commenting in detail, but added:
"Tackling climate change is and will remain an urgent UK and global priority. Our position remains that this is best achieved through international commitment to the UN's existing climate treaties and mechanisms."
[Getty Images Ralph Regenvanu (4th R), Vanuatu's Special Envoy on Climate Change and the Environment, Arnold Kiel Loughman (3rd R), Attorney General of Vanuatu and Ilan Kiloe (2nd R), Legal Advisor to the Melanesian Vanguard Group, and Gregoire Nimbtik, Deputy Director General of the Melanesian Pioneer Group (R) attend the advisory opinion sessions at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to determine states' obligations on climate in the Hague, Netherlands on December 2, 2024.] Representatives of Pacific Island nations gave evidence at the court Getty Images
The court ruled that developing nations have a right to seek damages for the impacts of climate change such as destroyed buildings and infrastructure.
It added that where it is not possible to restore part of a country then its government may want to seek compensation.
This could be for a specific extreme weather event if it can be proved that climate change caused it, but the Judge said this would need to be determined on a case by case basis.
"This is a huge win for climate vulnerable states. It's a huge win for Vanuatu, which led this case and is going to change the face of climate advocacy," said barrister Jennifer Robinson at Doughty Street Chambers, who represented Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands.
It is not clear how much an individual country could have to pay in damages if any claim was successful.
But previous analysis published in Nature, estimated that between 2000 and 2019 there were $2.8 trillion losses from climate change - or $16 million per hour.
During the evidence sessions in December, the court heard from dozens of Pacific Islanders who have been displaced as a result of rising sea level, caused by climate change.
The Marshall Islands highlighted that the costs for their island to adapt to climate change are $9 billion.
"That is $9 billion the Marshall Islands does not have. Climate change is a problem they have not caused, but they are forced to consider relocating their capital," said Ms Robinson.
A cyclone in 2015 in Vanuatu destroyed 276,000 homes and wiped out two-thirds of its GDP Getty Images
As well as compensation, the court also ruled that governments were responsible for the climate impact of companies operating in their countries.
It said specifically that subsidising the fossil fuel industry or approving new oil and gas licenses could be in breach of a country's obligations.
Developing countries are already exploring bringing new cases seeking compensation for historic contributions to climate change against richer, high emitting nations citing the ICJ opinion, according to lawyers the BBC spoke to.
If a country wants to bring a case back to the ICJ to make a ruling on compensation then it can only do so against countries which have agreed to its jurisdiction, which includes the likes of the UK, but not US or China.
But a case can be brought in any court globally, whether that be domestic or international, citing the ICJ opinion, explained Joie Chowdhury from CIEL.
So instead a country may choose to take their case not to the ICJ but a court where those countries are bound e.g. federal courts in the US.
But the question remains whether the ICJ opinion will be respected.
"[The ICJ] is an institution that is subject to geopolitics – and it relies on states adhering to its judgements, it doesn't have a police force," said Harj Narulla, a climate barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, which also represented the Solomon Islands.
When asked about the decision, a White House spokesperson told BBC News:
"As always, President Trump and the entire Administration is committed to putting America first and prioritising the interests of everyday Americans."
Trump committed to "the interests of everyday Americans." Yeah, banning books, making it more difficult for millions to vote, decimating government agencies like FEMA. See also:
Did you bother to even read the story or even attempt to open the provided links?
like this one that the blog post originated from? No you didn't but we'll just put in on record for you anyway since a progressive blog appears to scare you.
Trump’s Department of Labor Continues Its Onslaught against Workers
JULY 22, 2025 JULIE SU SENIOR FELLOW
RACHEL WEST SENIOR FELLOW
ANDREW STETTNER DIRECTOR OF ECONOMY AND JOBS
The Trump administration is doubling down on the president and his Department of Labor’s (DOL) deep hostility toward workers. Over the past six months, Donald Trump, his inaptly named Department of Government Efficiency (whose efforts to cut the federal budget by $2 trillion was a colossal failure and which reversed itself on many occasions, actions that cost more than they saved), his union-busting cronies, and his Department of Labor leadership have actively—and in many cases illegally—cut funds for programs that support workers, worker organizing, worker safety, and job training. Trump’s DOL has reversed commitments to states to build an effective unemployment insurance system; undercut its own ability to fight wage theft, international worker exploitation, and discrimination; and actively dismantled the department from the inside by slashing 20 percent of its staff.
Just before the July 4 holiday—as the nation was focused on Republicans’ efforts to pass the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and food assistance—Trump’s DOL issued a new barrage of attacks on workers, promising to turn a blind eye to stolen wages, safety violations, and corporate overreach. In total, the DOL announced sixty-four regulatory actions, the vast majority of which would reverse critical standards that ensure workers get a just day’s pay and come home healthy and safe (see Table 1 and Appendix). These actions would put the lives of workers across the economy at risk, deprive millions more of minimum wage and overtime protections, and sanction discrimination against workers of color, women, and workers with disabilities. At a time of rising prices, increased economic anxiety, and heightened dangers from climate change, the DOL should be doubling down on its mandate to protect and empower workers. Instead, the Trump administration is making workers more vulnerable to abuse and less safe on the job.
This factsheet highlights just some of the key deregulatory actions that will harm workers, identifying those that are particularly important to push back on through notice and comment procedures where available.
Putting workers in harm’s way by eroding the DOL’s health and safety authority.
Trump’s EPA repeals landmark climate finding in gift to ‘billionaire polluters’
"The U.S. Under Trump: Alone in Its Climate Denial "The Real Reasons for High Oil and Gas Prices "Four Ways Trump Plans to Raise Energy Costs for American Consumers""
Rollback of government’s ability to limit climate-heating pollution will make families ‘sicker and less safe’, environmental advocate says
Dharna Noor Fri 13 Feb 2026 07.53 AEDT
The morning commute on northbound Interstate 405 at sunrise on 15 January in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Kevin Carter/Getty Images
The Trump administration .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration .. has revoked the bedrock scientific determination that gives the government the ability to regulate climate-heating pollution. The move was described as a gift to “billionaire polluters” at the expense of Americans’ health.
The endangerment finding, which states that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare, has since 2009 allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit heat-trapping pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources.
Donald Trump called the move “the single largest deregulatory action in American history”.
“This is a big one if you’re into environment,” he told reporters on Thursday. “This is about as big as it gets.”
The move comes as part of Trump’s bigger anti-environment push, which has seen him roll back pollution rules and boost oil and gas.
On social media, Barack Obama said the repeal will leave Americans “less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change – all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money”.
The former secretary of state John Kerry called the new rule “un-American”.
“Repealing the Endangerment Finding takes Orwellian governance to new heights and invites enormous damage to people and property around the world,” said Kerry, who also served as Joe Biden’s climate envoy. “Ignoring warning signs will not stop the storm. It puts more Americans directly in its path.”
The final rule removes the government’s ability to impose requirements to track, report and limit climate-heating pollution from cars and trucks. Transportation is the largest source of climate pollution in the US.
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin speaks as Donald Trump looks on at the White House on Thursday. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
[Insert: While the GOP toadies to Trump, Trump toadies to his voratious billionaire buddies. Look at Trump there, looking like a little boy standing dutifully while his master speaks. Not even looking like a proud servant.]
It does not apply to regulations on stationary sources of emissions such as power plants and fossil fuel infrastructure, which are regulated under a separate section of the Clean Air Act, but it will open the door to end those standards, too.
Trump’s EPA has separately proposed to find that emissions .. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2025-06/12674-01-oar_carbon-pollution-standards-repeal-nrpm_proposal_20250611_clean_v3_0.pdf .. from power plants “do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution” and therefore should not be regulated. Joseph Goffman, who served as EPA air chief under Joe Biden, expects the agency will apply their vehicles-focused arguments to stationary polluters in order to kill the endangerment finding for all sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Instead of the entire house of cards of all EPA climate regulation collapsing all at once today, it’s going to be like a row of dominoes falling,” said Goffman, who helped write and implement the Clean Air Act and worked directly on the endangerment finding.
“If this reckless decision survives legal challenges, it will lead to more deadly wildfires, more extreme heat deaths, more climate-driven floods and droughts, and greater threats to communities nationwide – all while the EPA dismisses the overwhelming science that has protected public health for decades,” Gavin Newsom, the California governor, said in a statement.
The move marks “the most aggressive, ruthless act of dismantling public health protections in the agency’s 55-year history”, said Dominique Browning, director and co-founder of environmental advocacy group Moms Clean Air Force.
In a press release, the EPA said the move will save the US $1.3tn, while Trump said Thursday that the move “will save American consumers trillions of dollars”.
The EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, said the Obama and Biden administrations used the endangerment finding “to steamroll into existence a leftwing wish list of costly climate policies”.
“Who paid the biggest price? Hardworking families, small businesses, millions of Americans who just want a reliable, affordable car to get to work or take their kids to school or go to church on Sunday,” he said.
One analysis from green group Environmental Defense Fund found the full repeal of the endangerment finding combined with Trump’s proposal to roll back motor vehicle standards would result in as much as18bn more tons of planet-warming pollution by 2055 – the same as the annual emissions of China, the world’s top polluter – and would impose up to $4.7tn in additional expenses tied to harmful climate and air pollution by that time.
Zeldin submitted the repeal of the legal determination for White House review last month. In July, he officially announced plans to repeal the finding, justifying the proposal with a widely criticized energy department report questioning climate science.
The agency received half a million comments on the proposal. Last month, a federal judge said the July energy department report was created unlawfully.
In the repeal of the endangerment finding, the EPA is claiming that the Clean Air Act is only meant to regulate pollution “that harms health or the environment through local and regional exposure”. But there is scientific consensus that by trapping heat in the atmosphere, greenhouse gas emissions are intensifying dangerous extreme weather events, allowing diseases to spread faster, and worsening illnesses from allergies to lung disease.
Trump described the finding as “the legal foundation for the green new scam”, which he claimed “the Obama and Biden administration used to destroy countless jobs”.
But the new rule will have ruinous consequences for working-class Americans, said Jason Walsh, executive director of BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental groups.
“Billionaires like Donald Trump don’t suffer the devastation of climate change,” he said. “Working people do.”
The rollback comes one month after the Trump administration announced it will pull the US from the foundational UN agreement to address the climate crisis, as well as the world’s leading body of climate scientists. Over the past year, Zeldin has also launched an all-out assault on climate, air, water and chemical protections. The EPA has also removed crucial climate-focused science and data from its webpages.
“This is all part of the Trump administration’s authoritarian playbook to replace facts with propaganda, to enrich a few while harming the rest of us,” said Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director for the climate and energy program at the science advocacy group the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Administrator Zeldin has fully abdicated EPA’s responsibility to protect our health and the environment.”
The EPA has said that it determined the US would save billions annually by revoking the endangerment determination. But the agency’s analysis did not account for the money and lives saved by the environmental and public-health protections that the change would eliminate, experts say.
Alex Witt, senior adviser at green advocacy group Climate Power, said: “Zeldin and Trump are telling our families: we’ll let you get sicker and watch your healthcare costs skyrocket as long as oil and gas CEOs can profit.”
“This decision makes it abundantly clear that Trump is willing to make our families sicker and less safe, all to benefit a few billionaire polluters,” said Witt.
Some industry groups have been reluctant to support the full rollback of the endangerment finding. The American Petroleum Institute, the top US oil lobby group, last month said it backed a repeal of the endangerment finding for vehicles, but not for stationary sources of pollution like power plants.
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