The News
The CEO of the parent company of one of the largest US power utilities joined the ranks of business leaders urging US President-elect Donald Trump not to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
Pedro Pizarro, who leads Edison International, told Semafor at COP29 that a US withdrawal from global climate diplomacy puts more pressure on companies like his to communicate to overseas suppliers that there’s still demand for critical energy transition hardware in the US.
And he warned that at a time when utilities are seeing record-breaking growth in demand for power to supply factories, data centers, and EVs — Pizarro said his company’s forecast for power demand in 10 years is 35% higher than it was two years ago — Congress stripping away Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for renewables would only lead to higher bills for consumers.
One aspect of Trump’s reelection does have him feeling more optimistic: Pizarro said he would be happy to see the Environmental Protection Agency rewrite power plant emissions rules to make it easier to build new gas-fired plants, something he thought the Biden administration was unrealistic about the need for.