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Trump and Poilievre: Big Oil’s bodyguards

U.S. President Donald Trump (left) declared a National Energy Emergency, granting himself extraordinary powers to fasttrack fossil fuels. Conservative Party Leader Pierre has promised to grant the oil lobby's full wish list. Illustration by Ata Ojani/Canada's National Observer

As the invisible hand of the market tilts in favour of cheaper and cleaner renewable energy, Big Oil is counting on the heavy hand of governments led by Donald Trump and potentially Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre to defend them against its clean energy competitors and environmental critics. 

It’s not subtle. 

On his first day in office, Donald Trump declared a National Energy Emergency, granting himself extraordinary powers to fasttrack fossil fuel (but not wind or solar) projects, and pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement. There was even a separate Executive Order limiting wind project approvals. 

In Canada, Poilievre won’t just axe the carbon tax, a policy the main contenders to replace Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau are promising to walk back.  He has promised to grant the oil lobby’s full wish list: kill the oil and gas pollution cap, the clean electricity regulation, the low-carbon fuel rule and the Impact Assessment Act, while building pipelines in all directions. We’ve seen a preview in Alberta, where the provincial government has let the oil industry off the hook for cleaning up abandoned wells and crippled the once-thriving renewable energy industry

This may seem like overkill, given that oil production hit record highs under Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau. Yet even the modest climate policies Biden and Trudeau adopted are viewed as too much by an oil industry facing an existential threat in the form of plummeting costs for wind and solar power, electric vehicles, batteries and heat pumps. Clean energy can do all the things oil and gas do now, but at a lower cost and without frying the planet. 

In response, oil executives have adopted a three-pronged strategy.

First, they are financing and supporting politicians who will give tax and regulatory breaks to oil and gas while throwing up barriers to renewable energy. In the 2024 U.S. election cycle, oil companies and executives donated over $170 million to Republican candidates and their conservative allies — compared to only $1.4 million to the Democratic side — after Trump brazenly promised oil donors lucrative tax and regulatory favours in return for campaign donations. In Canada, the Conservative Party organized a $1650/plate fundraiser where top oil executives got private time with Poilievre. 

Second, they are pushing for draconian new legislation to intimidate their critics. Oil and gas lobbyists have been shown to be the key architects behind a wave of new anti-protest laws. Twenty-two U.S. states have passed laws that can punish people protesting against oil rigs, gas pipelines, dams and other so-called critical infrastructure with long prison terms and hefty fines. Alberta passed its own controversial anti-protest law in 2020 and we can likely anticipate something similar from Poilievre, who has demanded punitive measures against Indigenous and environmental protests while supporting the right-wing protesters who shut down Ottawa in 2021.

Third, oil giants are launching lawsuits to silence their critics and tie them up in costly court battles. Greenpeace chapters have fended off legal attacks from oil giants Shell in the UK and Total Energy in France, but still face a $300M lawsuit in the United States from Energy Transfer Partners (ETP). ETP is the company behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and whose CEO donated $15 million to Trump’s campaign. 

Authoritarians like Trump, and the oil and tech billionaires backing him, need an enemy to justify an agenda few would otherwise support, writes Keith Stewart

Environmentalists aren't alone on the resurgent right-wing’s “enemies within” list. Just ask any transgender kid or migrant labourer what it’s like to be a political punching bag. The next time you see powerful people bemoaning the “woke” agenda, remember that “woke” can usually be replaced by “kindness.”

There is, however, a method to this madness. Authoritarians like Trump, and the oil and tech billionaires backing him, need an enemy to justify an agenda few would otherwise support. 

And it is horrifying to watch hate being mobilized and weaponized to advance it. But it’s not the first time this has happened. In times like these, writer Rebecca Solnit reminds us, it is important to remember the lessons of past struggles: 

“They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything. And you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.”

In the coming months and years, let’s fight for what we love. 

Keith Stewart is a senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada. He has a Ph.D. from York University and is a part-time instructor at the University of Toronto, where he teaches a course on energy and environmental policy.

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