Paris (AFP) – The United States is falling behind the European Union in the rollout of wind power and risks being overtaken by China, a think tank said Thursday, days after Trump announced a crackdown on new wind projects. Shortly after his inauguration on Monday, Donald Trump signed an executive order pausing the development of new wind energy projects, following up on a campaign promise to no longer fund the sector.
“The United States is diverging from global trends on wind power,” said Dave Jones, a director at climate think tank Ember. “Major economies are embracing wind as a source of cheap, clean electricity. The United States risks being left behind in the clean industrial revolution,” he added. About 10 percent of the United States’ electricity came from wind power in 2023, or just above the world average of 7.8 percent.
Trump has favoured oil and gas over wind power. Trump also declared Monday a national energy emergency to significantly expand oil and gas drilling in the United States after pledging in his inauguration speech that we will “Drill, baby, drill!”. China is currently right behind the United States, with nine percent of its power coming from wind farms in 2023. But Beijing is speeding up the building of wind turbines, setting up China “to overtake the United States in the coming years,” according to Ember.
Both nations are still considerably behind the European Union, where wind power accounted for 17 percent of the energy produced in 2024, according to a report released by Ember on Thursday.
© 2024 AFP
