Trump can’t stop cleantech

Let’s talk about Trump

Friends have asked whether I’m worried that a Trump presidency will destroy the progress made by the cleantech sector in the last few years.

I’m not worried.

Of the 195 independent states of the world, Trump is the only national leader to dismiss the science of climate change. Trump’s picks for the head of the EPA, Secretary of State, Energy Secretary (and chief strategist, interior secretary, etc.) is also clearly not the ideal case for cleantech. But this doesn’t mean the end of cleantech, or anything close.

While 209K Americans currently work in the solar industry, jobs in the coal industry have been going down for decades. And they’re not going to come back.

• The number of US jobs in solar overtook those in the natural gas and oil sector combined in 2015. Trump cannot kill solar without leaving over half a million Americans unemployed. The cleantech sector currently employs 2.5M people, and this number is rapidly growing.

“If I cared about subsidies, I would have entered the oil and gas industry” — Elon Musk, June 2015

• If Trump wants to cut renewable subsidies, he should know that the oil/gas sector has gotten subsidies since 1926, and continues to get subsidies…