As President Trump takes aim at emissions in his deregulation firefight, Jim McClelland asks: To counter the uprising in climate scepticism, do we just need to follow the money?
Climate sceptics must be feeling pretty pleased with how 2026 has panned out so far.
Their Denier-in-Chief, the 47th President of the United States, has come out both barrels blazing, taking aim at climate policy and emissions regulation, firing seemingly at will.
Climate in the crosshairs
On February 12, 2026, at the behest of President Trump, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially repealed key elements of its legislation of greenhouse gases from 2009 known as the ‘endangerment’ and ‘cause or contribute’ findings.
Forming part of the US Clean Air Act (CAA), these findings cemented the foundational link between GHGs and public health, so providing a legal basis for regulation of emissions.
The knock-on effects will impact climate regulation of emissions from a whole host of sectors and markets, including power plants, buildings and, most significantly, transport.
The Trump administration is billing this roll-back as part of the ‘biggest regulatory relief’ in history — but push-back has been immediate and widespread, involving multiple parties.
The lawsuits have already begun, with a broad coalition of health and environment groups suing the EPA within days of the announcement of the rescission of the findings.
As with tariffs, the fight against deregulation is by no means over — it has only just begun.
By contrast, the world’s second largest market and its worst emitter in recent times now appears to be moving in the opposite direction. On the very same day President Trump began his assault on the climate protections afforded by the EPA, figures revealed carbon emissions had actually fallen in China for the first time in some 20 years.
As with tariffs, the fight against deregulation is by no means over — it has only just begun.
Jim McClelland Sustainable futurist, editor, journalist and speaker
SCOTUS vs POTUS
As if a bonfire of the regs were not enough, all this disruption takes place at a time when crude oil prices are dancing merrily up and down on traders’ screens in knee-jerk response to news and rumour of US military manoeuvres against the likes of Venezuela and Iran.
Plus, just when import-export sectors thought it safe to reset prices, tariffs got torn up, too.
On the Friday February 20, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) voted to throw out the blanket tariffs originally imposed on imports by the President of the United States (POTUS) back on so-called ‘Liberation Day’, sparking calls and claims for refunds.
That same day, however, the President retaliated, invoking authority under a 1974 Trade Act to levy import duty at 10% as standard, at least temporarily for a period of 150 days.
Then, less than 24 hours later, he summarily raised the bar to 15%. This major uplift was announced merely in a post made by the President on his own media site Truth Social.
When it comes to geopolitics, global trade, economics and the stock market, it seems the only thing certain is volatility. So where does this leave sustainability in business?
Speak truth to power
Well, rather than just ride the rollercoaster, mouth open, eyes shut, there is work to do. With the Flat-Earthers in full voice, these are testing times for sustainability champions.
So, now would be a good moment to counter some of the myths, half-truths and downright lies being put about by naysayers and climate sceptics under a banner of ‘net stupid’.
This is especially important when prominent players in the corporate world appear to be running scared: increasingly guilty of greenhushing on climate and energy; fudging goals and targets; plus dismantling strategies on the likes of diversity equity and inclusion (DEI).
Divestment hits hard
Interestingly, signals from the investment community around sustainability nevertheless remain largely positive. If you are in need of some reassurance, just follow the money. In particular, pay close attention to where it is not going — track the divestment narrative.
Reneging on sustainability principles and promises is proving costly — and divestment hits where it hurts. Last December, for example, Dutch activists successfully pushed pension fund PME to pull $5.9 billion from Blackrock, the largest asset manager in the world.
Only a matter of three months earlier, another major Dutch pension fund, PFZW, had already withdrawn a whopping $16.98 billion from the same manager. The main reason given for its big-money move away was a lack of alignment on sustainability issues.
Crucially, this upbeat high-level investment play is also finding expression increasingly far out along the supply chain. In short, for sustainability, the diversification trade is on.
Trade the transition
At present, diversification typically gets talked about most in respect of the eye-watering amounts of precious capital being sunk deep into artificial intelligence (AI).
Now, as the stratospheric early-riser stocks either start to slow or stumble, traders turn to look beyond prime movers such as Nvidia, or OpenAI, or data-centre-heavy hyperscalers and behemoths of the cloud like AWS (Amazon), Alphabet (Google) or Microsoft (Azure).
In a bid to manage risk but maintain growth, the market is shifting its focus to beneficiaries of the tech revolution, seeking out sectors and companies actually profiting from AI usage.
The same investment approach is arguably now emerging in the global energy transition.
Ripples into real estate
The ripples of the energy transition continue to spread out far and wide across different sectors and markets, way beyond climate finance, power generation, utilities and grids.
Take office property and commercial real estate, for example. Energy and running costs aside, why would a commercial landlord risk capital in a somewhat tepid property scene to invest in a substantial building upgrade to remove gas heating and install heat pumps?
The straight answer, in their own words, is they need to up their credentials in terms of carbon emissions, energy efficiency and social governance to win and keep the calibre of corporate client they want and need. This is the business case for sustainability.
In practice, an Environmental Performance Certificate (EPC) with a rating of ‘B’ or above therefore becomes an essential asset in a competitive current and future market.
Proof of performance, in the form of third-party standards and accreditation, is now a non-negotiable if they hope to attract discriminating tenants from the world of global business.
Picks and shovels
This is diversification in action. If we are entering the era of a climate goldrush, where decarbonisation is the global gold, then tried-and-tested technologies, resources, products and materials — such as green energy and heat pumps — are the picks and shovels.
Change is happening; and it is happening right now in the real world of budgets and deliverables, miles away from the White House, in places like Manchester, England.
The climate fight is on; and it is on-site. Don’t despair. Keep the faith and follow the money.
Jim McClelland is a sustainable futurist, editor, journalist and speaker
