Today, Explained - Is climate progress doomed?

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

Many worry that the clean energy transition will be derailed by the Trump administration. But there's reason to believe otherwise. Listen to Explain It to Me ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Call in your question at 1-800-618-8545. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact checked by Melissa Hirsch and engineered by Matthew Billy. Photo of wind turbines in a storm in western Iowa by Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What gives you that hope? Hi, I'm Jon Glenn Hill and we get a lot of calls to the Explain It To Me hotline. And quite a few have been from listeners wondering, what's going on with climate change? We know that President Donald Trump is a climate skeptic, and he's been doing a lot in his three months back in office to slow down the climate progress that's been made. So where does that leave us now? To answer this question, I brought in a colleague,

someone whose job it is to think about the changing climate and who knows how to cover it in a way that doesn't make us want to throw up our hands in despair. So I am Paige Vega. I'm Vox's climate editor. And I think I'm the only Voxer that lives in Southwestern Colorado. I live in a little mountain town in the Four Corners region. And I've got two dogs and we hang out in the mountains.

And yeah, it's pretty nice situation. Yeah, I'm very jealous of your access to green chili. I want to play you these questions we got from a listener named Sophie. My main questions are what, as related to climate change, is likely to happen at the federal level? What's the risk in terms of our ability to address the climate crisis? And then what can be done at a state and local level to make meaningful action towards addressing the climate crisis?

So I have good news for listeners and readers like Sophie who are concerned about what they're seeing come out of the White House and Trump's executive actions to derail the clean energy transition and climate progress. The news is our climate is not doomed. Full stop. Trump is doing a lot of things, but we are unlikely to see all of the momentum that's been building for years around the clean energy transition fully stop. And if you do take a step back and look at the economic trends associated with wind,

solar, renewable energies of all kinds across the board, EVs, the picture is much bigger than just the United States. And on the global scale, there is a lot to be hopeful about there. Okay. I want to get into the Trump of it all. What is the president doing to kind of stymie that climate progress? Yeah, he's doing a lot.

And readers are right to be concerned about all of the headlines that they've been seeing over the last several weeks and months since Trump took office. But the one thing that's really important to keep in mind here before we go down this long list of assaults, is that Joe Biden actually produced more oil than Trump did in his first term.

And one thing that I talk about a lot with Fox's other climate reporters is, how do we make decisions around the stories that we're covering coming out of Trump? Because he says a lot of things, but does what he says actually translate to concrete action and consequences? And we looked back at his first term

and wanted to really interrogate, like, what are the lasting legacies in terms of climate and energy policy that came out of Trump 1? And there wasn't actually a lot that stuck. So what happened is Trump did a lot of similar things that we're seeing him do now during his first term, but then Biden came into office and reversed a lot of those policies. A couple examples here, Trump pulled us out of the Paris Agreement.

I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris. Biden put us back into the Paris Agreement. And as of today, the United States is officially, once again, a party to the Paris Agreement, which we helped put together. Trump is also attempting to, you know, curlew tail the ability of states to regulate vehicle emissions.

We saw him do that in his first term. The assault on the American auto industry, believe me, is over. Biden came into office and reversed that. The United States of America will meet our emissions targets by 2030. So Trump, on day one of his second term here, he declared an energy emergency.

We will drill, baby, drill. And had a flurry of executive orders that are all really intended to gut federal climate efforts, roll back regulations that are aimed at limiting things like pollution. He wants to give a major boost to the fossil fuel industry, and he wants to abandon efforts to really reduce global warming. This has really come through in a series of executive orders that are currently tangled up in the courts or haven't been fully realized. So the short answer to that question is that not much has actually happened yet. We're still in

this really intense wait-and-see period. You mentioned that outside the US other countries are moving ahead on clean energy. Can you talk about that a little bit? Who's doing what? Yeah, so basically China's eating our lunch when it comes to the energy transition and climate progress. Oh wow. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing because this is a developing country that's been emitting more fossil fuels in recent years, but as they're developing so rapidly, they're actually doing quite a lot to transition away from fossil fuels

and dirty forms of energy to diversify that energy mix. So in 2022, China installed roughly as much solar capacity as the rest of the world combined, In 2022, China installed roughly as much solar capacity as the rest of the world combined. And then it doubled additional solar capacity in 2023. We're also seeing it do quite a lot on the EV electrical vehicle and infrastructure front as well. One company really stands out here, BYD,

and it's very popular across the world. It's a very cheap and honestly stylish vehicle that a lot of consumers enjoy that we don't have access to in the United States. Yeah, I was about to say, like, that's not a Tesla. Did not know there was another big game in town. Yeah, BYD is really taking the lead here in terms of the global picture on the EV race. OK, we've talked about globally, we've talked about the federal level. Outside of the federal level,

can we expect to see a lot of action happening on that state and local level? The states are going to be very important here in the next couple of years. Trump can't control the price of energy. Trump can't control a lot of things outside of public land, energy development, and a lot of US energy production happens on state lands or on the state level. And many states across the country have set their own goals and targets for climate progress and have not abandoned those goals. We also see Republican states and Republican districts benefiting far more than we're seeing blue states benefit from climate incentives and things like the Inflation Reduction Act

that Joe Biden passed. This was a major climate legislation that pumped a ton of money into the energy transition and really shifting the economy to accommodate that. So Trump's going to not face exactly an easy path to begin to reverse some of those things. Paige Vega, climate editor for Vox.com. We'll catch up with her again later, but first a break. When we come back, we're going to hear from our colleague Benji about one Red State that's making big moves on energy.

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We're back. It's explain it to me. So what does the clean energy transition look like in a state that's solidly Republican? Let's ask our colleague, Benji Jones, environmental correspondent at Vox. OK, so you focused this story you wrote on Iowa. Why Iowa? I am from Iowa. I'm from a small town in the like, nose in the southeast corner.

And whenever I go home to visit my parents, who are still there, I'm seeing these open expanses of farmland, and then in the distance, a bunch of windmills, wind turbines. And actually, when I looked into this a few years ago, I found out that Iowa gets a larger share of its energy from wind power than any other state in the country. Two decades ago, there were only a few hundred wind turbines in Iowa. Now there are more than 6,000 in this state.

According to the Iowa Environmental Council, wind energy made up almost 65% of Iowa's electricity last year. So it's like this massive wind powerhouse. And that fact is interesting to me because Iowa is also a Republican stronghold. It's voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, most recently in 2024. Trump won in a landslide. And Trump and wind power tend to be at odds. I've seen the most beautiful fields, farms, fields, most gorgeous things you've ever seen.

And then you have these ugly things going up. Trump, I would say, is like the most anti-wind energy president in history. And they say the noise causes cancer. You tell me that one, okay? Rrrrrrrrrrr it so... And of course, it's like a graveyard for birds. He, like, really hates wind energy, and this dates back to at least 2012 when he kind of got into a fight with a town in Scotland over putting up wind turbines in the site of his golf course that he was opening. During a Scottish government hearing, Trump warned that wind turbines are the site of his golf course that he was opening.

During a Scottish government hearing, Trump warned that wind turbines are a threat to their country's tourism industry. Wind turbines made in China are going to be the destruction and almost a total destruction of your tourism industry. He's over the years just been very, very outspoken against wind, calling turbines monstrosities, telling people that they kill whales, which we don't think they do. They're dangerous. You see what's happening up in the Massachusetts area with the whales, where they had two whales wash ashore in I think a 17-year period, and now they had 14 this season.

The windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously. There's no evidence of that. So yeah, very anti-wind. And he's putting real actions behind that anti-wind stance. So literally on his first day in office, he signed an executive order that effectively suspends new federal offshore wind leases and also temporarily suspends new and renewed approvals, federal approvals for both offshore and onshore wind projects.

So he's already trying to get in the way of this industry. And this is a bigger issue right now for offshore wind. And we're already starting to see some companies in the wind industry getting cold feet, pulling projects. There's also concerns around tariffs. So a lot of the parts for wind turbines are imported. Iowa has manufacturing facilities for turbines. Some of those parts are definitely going to be coming from out of the country. And so we could see an increase in the cost of turbines, probably in the single digits. There's also this question of whether the tax credits for wind power, so you can get tax credits for wind energy

right now, there's a question about whether Congress, under Republican control, might do away with those tax credits, which would make wind more expensive. So there is kind of like a lot of, I hate headwinds. Everyone makes that pun, I hate it, but there are serious like roadblocks for wind industry at the hands of Trump. Okay, so Trump has this ongoing beef

with wind and wind turbines. How will these policies impact Iowa? The short answer is that it's not clear yet. And so you could see, for example, the cost of turbines going up, which could be reflected in energy bills across the state. Iowa has fairly cheap electricity bills, and that's something that is important, especially to companies that are coming there and building data centers and so forth. So we could see a change in the cost of energy. You could see a slowdown in the build out of wind farms. That's another issue.

But ultimately, it's gonna be like a time will tell how bad Trump's policies are gonna hit the state. How did Iowa become a wind energy state? So it's very windy. That's a key here, very windy. There are no major fossil fuel industries in Iowa, so there aren't competing industries that are lobbying for their own energy sources. So that was another part of it.

I think one of the most interesting reasons is that Iowa was the first state in the country to pass what's called the renewable portfolio standard. This was in 1983, and it required the state's investor-owned utilities to Contract out or own a certain minimum of renewable energy So it's basically like you need to be producing at least this much by this date and it was the first state to have that kind Of regulation in place and so there was this policy incentive as well And also one of Iowa's senators Chuck Grassley the oldest senator in Congress, was really responsible for getting tax credits in place for wind energy at the federal level.

And he's actually considered the father of wind energy in Iowa because of his role in getting tax incentives in place for energy. So that was also really, really key. You know, you don't want to be dependent on the volatile Middle East for energy. So we did everything during the 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s to develop alternative energy. And then another big part of this is that it's cheap. So wind energy is one of the cheapest energy sources, if not the cheapest. And then the last thing I'll say is that farmers really benefit from it. So farmers have a lot of land in Iowa.

They're a pretty powerful voting block and putting turbines on their property is a way for them to make some extra income alongside their farms. So you actually talked to some farmers who are benefiting from clean energy. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, I talked to this guy named Dave Johnson who lives just over the border in Minnesota actually, but he has a livestock farm in Northern Iowa. We love our livestock, we love our land, we appreciate it. Just a conservative farm family. Dave leases some of his land to an energy company that installed four turbines on his

property and then his son who's nearby also has turbines on his farm, and so does his neighbor. So this like little community in Northern Iowa, a bunch of farmers with their wind turbines, and he speaks really, really highly of wind energy. We take in roughly $30,000 a year, and that grows every year. So that's a 401k plan that I never had. He has a lot of hogs and cattle, but he installed turbines as a way to generate like supplementary income. So the price of livestock can change over time, but wind energy tends to be more stable. So it's actually a boon to him to have turbines on his land. I look out there and I see those turbines.

They do absolutely no damage to me whatsoever. We have four turbines in our property and we lost an acre and a half of total land. Now that's a pretty good swap. They get that kind of money for an acre and a half. Everyone needs a side hustle. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And he told me that it's not just him that's benefiting, but the whole state of

Iowa benefits from having the wind turbines on his land. I mean, when you think about all the money that's brought in on farmers that have participated in wind projects, I think you would be shocked. And that's what's saving a lot of them family farms out there. When it comes to politics, where's Dave's head at? Yeah, I mean, so this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to him, because like many Iowans, he says that he is Republican and he supports Trump. But it's not because of Trump's views on energy.

Donald Trump was elected not for his views on green energy as much as his views on other things. We have to have somebody that protects business, and I think the Republican Party does that in a great way. And Dave also told me that he's not really worried about what Trump has said negatively about wind energy. He kind of disregards it as like, oh yeah, he just runs his mouth, don't worry about it, let's see what he actually does.

My 320 acres is bringing in $80,000 for taxation. In addition to the land that I pay taxes on. You know, is Trump going to offset that because he don't want us to have renewables? I don't think so. I don't think you'll get that fast. If I see tried. Are there other states that are in a similar situation as Iowa, you know, these red states that are invested in clean energy? Yeah, it's actually like pretty common. So Texas is another great example. It actually produces more wind power than any other state in the country.

It actually accounts for about a fourth or actually over a fourth of all wind energy produced in the U.S. It's coming from Texas, which of course is a Republican state. Same with Oklahoma and your home state of Kansas. And then Florida is another example. It's a big solar state, so we're not just talking about wind. So you have a lot of red states that are producing renewables. Where do you expect to see the clean energy industry go from here? I mean, I'm so uncomfortable with uncertainty. You and the stock market. Yeah, exactly. If I had to guess, I would say we will see a slowdown in the growth of wind as an industry, but ultimately it's not going to

go away, it's not going to stop. Projection suggests that by 2050, out into the future, we are going to see a much larger percent of energy in this country, around the world, coming from renewables, coming from wind. Because again, what really matters here, and this is such an important takeaway, wind energy is cheap, if not the cheapest source of new energy relative to all other sources. And because it's cheap, it's going to do pretty well. I mean, the only reason Iowa has become such a big wind state

is that it was economically smart for the state. Vox's Benji Jones. After this next break, we'll hear some ideas about what we all can do to keep climate progress moving forward in the coming years. Are you a forward thinker? Then you need an HR and finance platform that thinks like you do. Workday is the AI platform that helps propel your organization, your workforce, and your industry into the future. Workday, moving business forever forward.

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gaming and more all the time. Get the RBC ION Plus Visa. Conditions apply. Visit rbc.com slash ion cards. Take the headlines in stride. It's not predetermined. We're back and it's Explain It to Me. Before the break, we heard from Benji Jones about wind energy in Iowa and how Trump's

policies might impact renewable energy, even in states that he won. I wanted to talk to Paige again to find out what steps those of us who aren't wind farmers can take right now. As you're reading the headlines and getting really concerned about the action of the federal government, keep that in check. Like, the headlines can sound really bad, but putting those in context often,

like they don't play out the way that they're first portrayed, these transitions take a really, really long time. It's a very wide turn of a very big ship, and Trump does not hold all the levers to control what happens. He's also getting tangled up in the courts. So take the headlines in stride. Like it's not predetermined. But what we can do as individuals,

like just beyond moderating our stress and like maintaining some hope in all of this is reduce your energy usage and change some of your daily behaviors to be more sustainable in your own life. This can be really easy to do actually. Like something like cutting 10% of meat out of your diet, just eating 10% less of that can make a huge difference,

especially if that's scaled up like on a population level or within your community. Opt out of factory farming. And if you can source food and meat from your own community or from your friends who hunt or something, that's always a great option. That's something that my family does. You can also think about acting

on your personal home energy usage. Turn your thermostat up. You don't need to crank it down to 68 degrees. You may be a little less comfortable at 74, but you're saving a lot actually by doing things like that. And stay engaged. Contact your elected officials to voice support for climate action. Like keep this on the minds of the politicians that represent you in your community, on the county level, state level, and the federal level. Like put pressure, keep calling, send emails, post on your social media, like be vocal about the things that you care about.

There's also a way to build your social life around just being more sustainable. Things like thrifting instead of buying new. Like can you buy used as much as possible, used electronics, used home furnishings, used clothing? Being the next step in the life cycle of a product means you're keeping it out of the landfill for longer. And that really does make a difference in terms of emissions and also just, you know, being more taxing on the environment. Have you found ways to make changes in your own life? Yeah, so I have. I installed a heat pump system in my home. It actually is cheaper for me to install something like a heat pump rather than relying on my old 1940s furnace that's pulling from natural gas.

It's an upfront investment, but I actually was able to get local county incentives to get that installed in state incentives. And there is still a federal heat pump incentive as well. So those things haven't disappeared now that Trump has suddenly taken the White House. And I just went through that situation myself and I'm already saving money on my energy bill. Yeah, I'm curious, what are you and the rest of the Vox climate team watching out for in terms of climate progress right now? Yeah, so we're keeping track of the effectiveness of the outcomes of Trump administration policy.

We want to keep an eye on continued momentum on the state level as well. So what's going on with climate action by the states? policy. We want to keep an eye on continued momentum on the state level as well. So like, what's going on with climate action by the states? Is that pulling in the opposite direction of some of Trump's policies? Like, those things are really going to be interesting to watch, especially, you know, with some of these dynamics that we're seeing in red states that have big incentives to like continue investing in clean energy. What are the pace of technological advancements and cost reductions in clean energy? And I think public perception of climate change is so important as well.

Like you've seen climate change labeled recently as this like woke issue, but you also see more and more people being concerned about extreme weather and climate disasters. And climate change is like the impacting us in more of our communities. Like no matter where you live, you're disasters and climate change is like impacting us in more of our communities. Like no matter where you live you're going to experience climate change. We're in that era now. We're in a really interesting wait and see period honestly. Like Trump is doing a lot to

derail climate progress and the energy transition but he's not going to be able to slow that progress entirely. So it's kind of a question of how much and where. All right, thanks for explaining this to us, Paige. Yeah, thank you so much. And I really appreciate the question. I think it's on the mind of a lot of people. The VOX climate team's been reporting on the unexpected places where climate progress is continuing, and you can read those stories at Vox.com. While you're there, consider joining our membership program to get access to ad-free Vox podcasts, including Explain It to Me. Sign up at Vox.com slash members.

This episode was produced by Avashai Artsy. It was edited by our executive producer Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Melissa Hirsch, and engineered by Matthew Billy. Carla Javier is our supervising producer. I'm your host, Jon Klinhill. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye!