Shake off those dusty susty wings. The US election is good news for this industry, don’t worry about what the naysayers say – it’s their job to naysay.
Just as Trump’s election two years ago froze sustainability in Australia as corporates cowed to their US domiciled parents and sacked great teams, so too the midterm elections this week will embolden the sector and sow confidence that a reinvigorated Democratic Party in the US will make climate and resilience a central feature of its fight to win back the presidency.
As one of the political podcasts working overtime on Thursday morning said, the smart corporates will no longer fawn at the altar of Trump. They are in the business of reading the tea leaves because they need to make plans for their future. Like we do. Business success rests in reading expectations and mood as much as data.
Here’s a sample of what the specialist media on climate is saying:
After years as collateral damage in Donald Trump’s war on climate action, the Democrats’ sweeping triumph in the US midterm elections has emerged as a victory for the global renewable energy industry too.
The market value of renewable energy developers climbed.
Danish “Ørsted’s market value jumped by almost 10 per cent within hours of the Democratic victory, before closing nearly 5 per cent higher. The share price of other European renewables companies active in the US also climbed. Portugal’s EDP Renewables and the French utility Engie rose by more than 3 per cent.
For two years, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have exerted almost absolute control of US environmental policy, reorienting government support away from climate action, clean energy and stricter pollution controls to further embrace fossil fuels and deregulation.
“That’s about to change in a big way.”
“While climate was rarely on the ballot by name, Trump’s anti-climate policies shaped the outcome. Energy security, affordability, quality jobs and resilient communities now form a single, coherent agenda, and yesterday’s vote rejected the policies that have made each of them worse,” says Lisa Sachs, Associate Professor at Columbia Climate School.
With both chambers flipped, Democrats next session will set the agenda for hearings and will wield investigative powers… Appropriations could be a focus, given that the Trump White House has repeatedly frozen and withheld funds appropriated by Congress, such as for National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency grants.
Democrats are planning investigations into Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and his team, including over the bungled Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool upgrades and officials’ dealings with oil and gas companies, Politico has reported. EPA chief Lee Zeldin may also face scrutiny.
Ahead of the election polls show the majority of voters in 2026 are also concerned about climate change as temperatures and disaster risks rise.
The energy populists talk a lot about lowering energy prices for consumers but very little about either climate change or fossil fuels.
Many have been painting data centrs, rather than fossil fuel producers, as villains. Candidates often use messages focused on how utilities and data centers are raising voters’ electric rates. They propose measures to lower these costs, like requiring data centers to bring their own energy sources onto the grid.
The sweep will have profound consequences for climate action in the United States, even with President Donald Trump still in the White House. Flipping control of Congress will allow the Democrats to hinder Trump’s numerous attempts to roll back federal climate policy. In the first two years of Trump’s term, party leaders could do little more than write strongly worded statements to administration officials. They were powerless to stop the suspension of clean energy funding, the elimination of climate rules for power plants and motor vehicles, and the hollowing-out of agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency
There is potential for the restoration of some funding for energy and climate resilience programs that Republicans have been trying to whittle down.
In Texas James Talarico who has won a senate seat authored and introduced the Texas Climate Action Act in 2021. While the bill did not advance, it aimed to establish targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and set energy efficiency standards, with an emphasis on local resiliency.
In Florida Kathy Castor faced redrawn electoral boundaries but has won for the Democrats anyway. She’s raised the alarm about climate change. “Between 2019 and 2022 she chaired the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and has otherwise made reducing carbon pollution and preparing communities for climate impacts central to her legislative agenda. In March, she backed the Energy Bills Relief Act, which proposed restoring energy upgrade tax credits and connecting more clean energy to the grid. She has also strongly opposed data centers in the Tampa area that she serves, warning that the facilities could drive up her constituents’ utility costs while straining local water supplies.”
