The Financial Times – Ed Crooks

Markets, not politics, drive energy sector’s push to cut greenhouse gas emissions

On Friday, the US state department submitted a notification to the UN that the administration intended to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement reached in 2015.

The statement, confirming the decision that President Donald Trump announced in June, is at one level momentous. The world’s largest economy and second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is quitting a deal that the governments of leading European countries have described as “a vital instrument for our planet”.

In terms of the consequences for the global energy industry, however, its impact has so far been negligible. Of course, the full implications have yet to play out. But in the nine weeks since Mr Trump announced that leaving the agreement would be “a reassertion of America’s sovereignty”, energy companies around the world have been making plans that suggest their views on the outlook have not changed in any significant way.

Read Ed Crooks’ full article on the Financial Times website.