10 Reasons Trump’s Energy Plan Poses Major Climate Threats

Coal power, though not a clean or viable energy option, would be back on top

While on the campaign trail, Trump has been wooing the coal industry by promising to get miners back to work, claiming that unfair EPA regulations and Obama’s “war on coal” have hurt the industry.

However, experts say that the decline of coal has little to do with regulations and everything to do with the rise of natural gas; not only is natural gas far cleaner than coal, it’s also much cheaper to produce. In order for Trump to revive the coal industry, he would have to either raise natural gas prices — which would in turn damage a successful market — or subsidize the coal industry to allow it to compete.

Both options are “very, very unlikely” to even happen, let alone save the industry. Both also seem to go against Trump’s oft-repeated phrase that, “the government should not pick winners and losers.”

Aside from potentially damaging the success of the natural gas industry, a return to coal would have a detrimental impact on the environment, as coal has been found to be the single dirtiest form of fossil fuel energy and currently contributes 39% of all global C02 emissions.

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