Finance Commitments Under Energy Compacts Reach $1.6 Trillion

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But we don’t seem to want that money.

Information from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs speaks to the commitments made to how interested the world is in renewable energy and human well-being. It says: “New commitments to boost renewable energy and increase access to electricity and clean cooking technologies by 2030 have brought the finance and investment pledged through the United Nations to $1.6 trillion, with $284 billion already mobilized, according to the fourth edition of the Energy Compacts Annual Progress Report.”

Just think of it! $1.6 trillion is a fair chunk of change. Of course it is not nearly as much as should be spent, but even if we were normal people in this country, we wouldn’t dwell on that. Instead, we would look forward to the various ways people all across the world would be buying American products. We would be making EVs aplenty and pallets of solar panels stretching to the horizon. We would have FFP batteries to power the world while the sun doesn’t shine. (Let’s be truthful about wind power: The wind always blows, if not here then somewhere close-by enough for cost-effective transmission.)

The problem is that here in the US, we are not even close to normal. We are largely people who depend on the president of this country to make us great again. We have a sizable group, enough to sway an election, who want to make America independent of the rest of everything, meaning out of touch with what is going on in the world.

It is a situation that proves, beyond doubt, that Donald Trump knows as little about business as he does about energy. An astute businessman does not try to sell a product by bullying his customers. Instead, he finds out what the customers want and supplies it. For $1.6 trillion, we should be setting up battery factories, instead of arresting the people who came to this country, with proper visas, to work on them. We should be making and promoting wind turbines, instead of telling everyone that they produce the most expensive electricity out there — the customers can look at the data and most already know that wind power firmed by batteries makes the least expensive power available. And in my opinion, we should be giving solar panels away like lollipops to children of bank customers. (Do they still do that? Or am I just getting old?)

We don’t do those things. And so the world is turning to China for its energy supplies — and for its inspiration. And it’s going to China to spend its money. Just think of $1.6 trillion — what would the Chinese do with all that money? (My guess is that it would rebuild Ukraine. Putin can’t last forever, and neither can his war.)

The fact is, Donald Trump is not just a net-zero businessman. He has bankrupted businesses, an ability that he seems to be translating into working on the whole country. He is a net-zero president — or worse. His tariffs are making people people stop importing in many cases. In some cases, it is even sending businesses out of the US to settle in places like Mexico or Canada. Meanwhile, the rest of us pay a lot more for a lot more than coffee.

We can surmise beyond that. Not only is this country run by a loser, whose one business ability is limited to bullying people who might otherwise want to do business with him, it is run by a man who seems not to understand that if you want to do get people to deal with you, then start by finding out what they want, instead of trying to force products of your political supporters on them.

Those of us who oppose the swamp Trump created in Washington, DC, can take heart. I doubt that his party can retain power very long. His cabinet is mostly made up of people whose prior experience in government was talking about it on television, agreeing with his positions. It fails on a daily basis.

Fair disclosure: I was a Republican until 2004, when I came to believe that the party leadership was concealing climate change. And I was a life member of the NRA until 2016, when it endorsed a man I already believed was an obvious con artist to be president of the US. What good will the Second Amendment be, when the Constitution is terminated?

Featured image: Wind turbines by Abby Anaday, via Unsplash