The global tariffs of President Donald Trump have caused a generalized anxiety about a severe economic recession, and curiosity, for some, about how the world’s heating climate could affect.
Experts say that a slowdown in international trade could have a brief and light benefit in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which come in part of fuels such as gas and oil that are used to move goods around the world through ships, airplanes and vehicles. But any benefit of this type in the reduction of emissions, which cause climate change, will be flooded by the increase in costs worldwide that will harm efforts to make the transition to green energies.
“I would say that you could help the weather in the first year or two if we have a recession in economic activity or a recession, which nobody wants,” said Rob Jackson, head of the Global Carbon projectA group of scientists who monitor greenhouse gas emissions annually. “But it will damage the long -term climate because tariffs affect clean technology more than most other industries due to trade with China.
“Any issuance reduction would be temporary,” said Dan Jasper, Senior Policies Advisor of Project Dawdown. “I am deeply skeptical that this would have positive impacts on climate change and, in particular, in the transition of energy.”
Climate experts have closely studied changes in world economic activity last century, from the great depression to the recent coronavirus pandemic, looking for ideas to help shape policies to reduce carbon emissions. A great commercial war between the United States and China would be a very different dynamic to other recent decelerations, since China produces much of the necessary equipment for a transition to renewable energy, such as solar panels.
Trump imposed, then suspended for 90 daysImport taxes in dozens of countries on Wednesday. He intensified his commercial war with China, raising tariffs on their products well above 100%. China makes more than 80% of the world’s solar panels.
Tariffs could delay world commercial and economic activity. Carbon dioxide emissions fell during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 And during the global financial crisis in 2009, then he recovered within a year.
Jackson said that he expects a maximum of 1% in emissions if complete tariffs are implemented, significant, but much less than the 5.7% that his group calculated for the first year of the pandemic. And Jackson said the world cannot reach net zero carbon emissions to try to limit future warming without structural changes, namely, replace fossil energy and manufacturing with clean renewable energy.
“A drop in emissions is important. But Boomerange at the same levels or continues to increase later,” he said. “And we have really done nothing significant to address climatic problems.”
Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for the Law of Climate Change of Columbia University, also believes that there could be a slight temporal fall in greenhouse gas emissions if tariffs paralyze companies and people are not working. But, he said, the highest prices for the components for new renewable energy facilities will make some be economical to build and there will be much less imports of electric vehicles, which will lead to more emissions.
The transition to electric vehicles is a important part of clean energy change To reduce road transport emissions. The United States is an important importer of EVS and China is a better exporter.
The Renewable Energy Inverter Excelsior Energy Capital announced on Tuesday that it has raised just over $ 1 billion to continue investing capital in solar, energy, wind and other energy transitions projects in the United States. The co -founder and managing partner Chris Moakley said they need stability and predictable costs, tariffs cause volatility.
“If there is an increase in tariffs, I think there will be a time when we will have a slowdown,” he said. “The general economy of these investments and transactions will have to be a restart.”
The batteries at a network scale and solar panels, as well as energy transformers, are among the price increases most affected by imports, said David Shepheard, partner and energy expert at the Global Baringa consultant.
Combining green energy batteries is a rapidly growing climatic solution. The batteries allow renewable energies to replace fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal, while maintaining a constant flow of energy when they do not produce sources such as wind and solar energy. Shepheard calculated an increase in the price of 55% for network batteries if tariffs are completely implemented in China, where approximately 80% of these batteries are manufactured, undermining the case to use the storage of solar energy and battery to meet a growing demand for electricity.
If renewable energy prices increase, the United States will become fossil fuels, linking the nation to carbon emitting energy sources for decades, Shepheard added.
President Joe Biden sought to block a trajectory to Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of the nation. Trump began to reverse the country’s energy policies in office with a Executive Orders Support aimed at increasing oil, gas and coal. It has also moved aggressively against clean energy technologies, including stop wind lease sales on the high seas In federal waters, Cancel clean energy loans and Threatening action against the climatic laws of the states.
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