{"id":371373,"date":"2025-03-22T10:29:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T09:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=371373"},"modified":"2025-03-22T10:29:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T09:29:05","slug":"trumps-energy-secretary-offers-africa-freedom-from-bidens-climate-imperialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=371373","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Energy Secretary Offers Africa Freedom from Biden\u2019s Climate Imperialism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Vijay Jayaraj<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has signaled <\/a>a change that could mean the difference between life and death for millions in Africa. Speaking at the \u201cPowering Africa Summit\u201d in Washington, D.C., Wright told leaders of a continent of 1.5 billion people that the Trump administration \u201chas no desire to tell you what to do with your energy system.\u201d This is a departure from the Biden regime, which was aligned with much of the Western climate juggernaut imposing Green New Dealism on developing countries that couldn\u2019t afford it and stood to suffer by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a paternalistic post-colonial attitude that I just can\u2019t stand,\u201d Wright said of the climate evangelism that sought to force others to abandon fossil fuels and adopt largely useless technologies like solar and wind energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa has languished under paradoxical political and economic pressures: Nations that had built their prosperity on coal, oil and natural gas have spent decades discouraging Africans from tapping their own wealth of fossil fuels. The continent was shackled by a sanctimonious agenda of Western elites who used their financial and geopolitical leverage to press Africans into a campaign against a fabricated climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But where is the evidence for this \u201cexistential threat\u201d? Global life expectancy has\u00a0doubled<\/a>\u00a0since 1900, hunger rates have plummeted, and climate-related deaths have\u00a0dropped<\/a>\u00a098% over the past century. Predictions of global overheating are fearmongering resting on pseudoscience, and purported solutions to prevent catastrophe have no hope of working in any case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, these climate policies forced upon Africa aren\u2019t environmentalism; it\u2019s eco-imperialism that perpetuates the poverty and deprivation that only sensible energy policy can reverse. Poor education, ill-health and shortened lives would remain the lot of Africans being promised an ecological nirvana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you trace the evolution of energy on the world or on a country, it is the evolution of human possibility, human opportunity, and the quality of life,\u201d said Wright. Exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Repeating his message at the Houston CERAWeek energy conference, Wright noted that millions of people use solid fuels such as wood, straw and animal dung for cooking and heating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe indoor air pollution from this activity alone is estimated to kill over two million people annually,\u201d he said. Where he asked, is the global conference to address this crisis?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deafening is the silence from the climate establishment, which seeks to block development of natural gas deposits that would eliminate these deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roughly a billion people worldwide enjoy the comforts of modern life, consuming annually the energy equivalent of 13 barrels of oil per person, Wright said. In Africa, that figure plummets to less than one barrel per capita.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wear fancy clothes, mostly made out of hydrocarbons. We travel in motorized transport. The extra lucky of us fly across the world to attend conferences,\u201d he said. Meanwhile, African women walk miles to carry fresh water, wash clothes by hand and forgo education because a lack of electric lighting precludes doing homework at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeyond the obvious scale and cost problems,\u201d Wright said, \u201cthere is simply no physical way that wind, solar, and batteries could replace the myriad uses of natural gas.\u201d The same goes for replacing coal and oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa sits atop a treasure of energy riches. Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Libya are oil giants; Mozambique and Tanzania boast world-class gas fields; South Africa and Zimbabwe hold coal reserves that could power entire regions. Yet, much of this wealth is locked up by the arrogance of foreign pressure and the timidity of domestic hesitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wright\u2019s endorsement of fossil fuels is a game-changer. He has thrown open a door that was once bolted shut. His rejection of past impositions and embrace of African energy autonomy is an overdue recognition of realism and opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abundant energy is the lifeblood of progress. Without it, Africa remains trapped in a pre-industrial limbo, its people condemned to toil in darkness while the West preaches about an imaginary crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The continent\u2019s leaders must seize this moment with unapologetic resolve. Wright\u2019s words are a challenge for Africans to act decisively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The African Energy Week conference at Cape Town in September, as Wright noted, will be a critical platform to connect with global investors and accelerate development. From oil rigs in the Gulf of Guinea to coal reserves in the Kalahari basin, the time to build is now. Godspeed, Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This commentary was first published at Daily Caller<\/em><\/a> on March 18, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vijay Jayaraj<\/a> is a Science and Research Associate at the <\/em>CO2<\/sub> Coalition<\/em><\/a>, Arlington, Virginia. He <\/em>holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor\u2019s in engineering from Anna University, India.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has\u00a0signaled\u00a0a change that could mean the difference between life and death for millions in Africa. Speaking at the \u201cPowering Africa Summit\u201d in Washington, D.C., Wright told leaders of a continent of 1.5 billion people that the Trump administration \u201chas no desire to tell you what to do with your energy system.\u201d This is a departure from the Biden regime, which was aligned with much of the Western climate juggernaut imposing Green New Dealism on developing countries that couldn\u2019t afford it and stood to suffer by it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":371375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691820276,691819481,691825420,691818228,691833965,691833966,691833964],"class_list":["post-371373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-africa","tag-climate-related-deaths","tag-eco-imperialism","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-green-new-dealism","tag-solar-and-wind-energy","tag-u-s-energy-secretary-chris-wright","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1yBT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":464305,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=464305","url_meta":{"origin":371373,"position":0},"title":"Washington Lit the Fuse for Africa\u2019s Energy Explosion","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"08\/20\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Energy access is presented as the route out of poverty (jobs, clinics, schools, factories, cleaner cooking fuels). 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