Trump Targets Climate Policies, but Market Shows ‘Unstoppable’ Energy Shift

Just days after taking office, President Donald Trump delivered a blunt message on climate change to global business leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum on Thursday in Davos, Switzerland.

“I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful Green New Deal, I call it the ‘Green New Scam,’ withdrew from the one-sided Paris climate accord and ended the insane and costly electric vehicle mandate,” Trump said via teleconference.

Trump’s early actions on climate change and energy were widely anticipated—he also pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement in 2017 during his first presidency and promised to promote fossil fuels in his campaign. But the stark reversal in U.S. policy after four years of historic climate action is still enough to cause some whiplash for business executives trying to manage climate risks and seize clean-energy opportunities.

“It is obviously not good news that the U.S. is going to leave the Paris Agreement,” María Mendiluce, CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition, told Newsweek in a phone conversation from Davos. The coalition works with companies and nonprofits to accelerate the clean-energy transition, and Mendiluce said the lurching U.S. position is not good for business.

“Businesses like to see a lasting framework,” she said. “They’re making investments for 20, 30 years and they can’t change every four years.”

Mendiluce said it is too soon to tell what effect Trump’s policies will have on companies’ efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions and grow clean tech, but she said market data will be the more important factor.

“The market fundamentals show that the energy transition is unstoppable,” she said. “The companies that have made the investment in green solutions will continue to push for this.”

A financial retreat from climate goals appeared to be underway last month when some major banks including Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo ended their membership in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, an organization set up by the United Nations to support climate action in lending and investment.

Opponents of climate action were quick to claim victory.

“No longer are companies easily bowing to the global elites who hope to blacklist specific industries and the workers they employ,” West Virginia Republican Representative Riley Moore said in a statement. As state treasurer in coal-heavy West Virginia, Moore had led an effort to divest from financial institutions who supported what he called “anti-fossil fuel” policies.

Mendiluce said the banking departures from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance are overblown and have more to do with recent…