How the energy crisis can be solved

The unexpected election of President Donald Trump has prompted diplomats and governments around the world to question what to expect from the next four years.

When it comes to climate change, many environmental campaigners are alarmed. This is understandable: Trump has sent mixed signals, and we have much to learn about the new administration’s plans. But there is cause for hope, and even a potential opportunity for India.

With Hurricane Dorian striking the Bahamas and the East Coast, the climate blame game is now in full swing again: Global-warming activists, newspaper columnists, TV commentators and politicians are drawing links between climate change and hurricanes.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, warns, “This is what climate change looks like.” Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders one-ups that, tweeting: “Hurricane Dorian has everything to do with climate change, which is the existential crisis of our time.”

Trying to showcase climate leadership at the U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow, President Joe Biden is reaffirming his goal of creating “a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.” But that target will be prohibitively expensive. A new Nature study shows that a 95 percent reduction by 2050 — almost within reach of Biden’s net-zero — would cost 11.9 percent of GDP or more than $11,000 for each American every year.