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For Chris Wright, there may not be a simple truth. At the Senate confirmation hearing on January 15, the man was ready to control the U.S. Department of Energy and its vast technical research and development equipment, sitting behind a walnut desk wearing a grey suit and a red tie with a crisp knot. Wright, founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, a $3 billion natural gas fracking company, returned to his days as a solar energy researcher, offering lawmakers an open mind and a vision of innovation. Climate change is an urgent challenge, he will reassure them, and he will tackle it.
“It’s a global issue. It’s a real issue. It’s a challenging issue. And the solution to climate change is to evolve our energy systems,” he told the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. “I’m to improve all energy technologies that can improve human life and reduce emissions.”
However, since her confirmation as energy secretary on February 3rd, Wright has outlined the anti-climate agenda. Speaking to a conservative audience, he is charismatic, animated and far more enthusiastic. In a February 18 speech at the Responsible Citizenship Conference related to podcast host Jordan Peterson, Wright dismissed the transition to renewables as non-existent and called for global efforts to boost the use of renewables.
“The world is simply running on hydrocarbons,” he told the group.
Before the council he vowed to listen and learn about his courses and then chart. Before Peterson’s group, he announced that he already has a “9-point plan” that will more than double the world’s fuel consumption and overheat the planet. “The number one is not to get in the way of producing, exporting and enhancing the volumes of coal, oil and gas,” he said. Yes, they caused climate change, which he repeatedly admits, but it becomes an inconvenient complication.
Over the past few weeks, Wright has spoken not only at Peterson’s meetings, but also at Conservative Political Action Conferences and Thera Week. This is widely seen as the most influential business event of the oil industry, with the global economy relying primarily on the expansion of hydrocarbores, demonstrating that both the sun and the wind have stolen the costs. “It may be different to climate change here,” he meditated at Peterson’s forum, referring to “people who were obsessed with the climate.” He then hit the subject he highlighted again in the weeks that followed. “It was certainly a powerful tool used to develop government power, top-down control and reduce human freedom. It’s ominous.”
Chris Wright has different answers for different viewers…
…On Fossil fuel dependence
In the council
“The only pathway to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving the quality of life for people is through energy innovation. And America was a hotbed.”
At the event
“The world runs simply with hydrocarbons, and for most of its applications there is no substitute.”
…Responding to climate change
In the council
“I have studied and followed climate change data and evolution for at least 20 years. It’s a global problem. It’s a real problem. It’s a challenging problem. And the solution to climate change is to evolve the energy system.”
At the event
“I am honored to play a role in reverse what I think is very low-direction in energy policy. The policies of the previous administration focused on myopia on people and climate change simply as collateral damage.”
…About alternative energy sources
In the council
“I will be an embarrassing steward for affordable, reliable and secure American energy and all the sources of infrastructure needed to develop, deliver and protect them.”
At the event
“Beyond obvious scale and cost issues, there is no physical way for wind, solar and batteries to replace countless natural gas use. I haven’t mentioned oil or coal yet either.”
With Wright’s views becoming more public, he and the rest of Trump’s cabinet accept the premise of climate change, but even suggest that they will underestimate the threat and construct a case in which it is profitable to society. The White House is trying to reverse the legal definition of carbon dioxide as a climate pollutant and undo the rules’ scores that address the economic costs of extreme warming that it causes. “Recently, I was called a climate negative or climate skeptic,” Wright told attendees at Cerawek. “This is simply wrong. I’m a climate realist.”
“The Trump administration will deal with climate change as it is a global physical phenomenon, a side effect of building the modern world,” he continued. World life expectancy is rising sharply. Poverty has declined sharply. Modern medicine, telecommunications and airplanes are all the consequences. And in the process, “We actually increased the global atmospheric CO2 concentration by 50%.”
“Everything in life comes with trade-offs,” he added. “all.”
Such a jarring claim is more than a philosophical difference in global priorities. The fact that the vast majority of scientists around the world are proven to be devastating is a clear denial of the climate crisis. It gave some of the people he spoke to in Congress whiplash. Sen. Alex Padilla, who is on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, wrote through a spokesman in response to a question from Propobrica who stated Wright’s willingness to “support all energy sources,” but is now “deeply disappointed” as he prioritizes the Fosil fuel agenda.
However, one thing that isn’t is new.
What we see
During Donald Trump’s second presidency, Propovica will focus on areas that need scrutiny. Below are some of the issues reporters watch, and how to safely communicate with them.
We are doing something new. Helpful?
In 2024, Liberty Energy published a 180-page manifesto of disrespect, called “Hetting Human Lives,” connected to the similarly named Poverty Cooperative Foundation, created that year to bring cooking fuel to Africa. This document corresponds to a vigorous moral debate about how oil and gas-generated energy drives developed countries and how essential it is to nurture undeveloped countries out of poverty. The premise of Light is that communities lacking electricity and modern fuel should quickly benefit from the cheapest existing energy sources available. He says recent climate policies banning US investment in infrastructure that can provide oil and gas-based energy will cause enormous human harm. However, the “improve human lives” report goes further, suggesting that nonaqueous carbon technology has little role to play, claiming that if oil and gas production does not expand globally, billions of people will fall into poverty.
At Senate confirmation, Wright was asked several times to explain the embrace of “all sources” of energy. D-Nev. During the exchange that Senator Catherine Cortez Mast of pushed him to expand his meaning, Wright listed them: wind, nuclear, geothermal, hydroelectric power. “And if I didn’t say solar, it would be surveillance.”
The statement contrasts with what Wright told investors on Liberty Energy’s revenue call. He denounced many of these renewable energies for rising poverty and declining growth, and criticised the “continuous repetition of merely pseudo terms” that refers to “so-called energy transitions.” He claims he has invested in subsidizing carbon decline and the transition to clean energy for years, but hydrocarbons have fuel and fueled about 85% of the world’s energy supply he has had for decades. He said renewables still account for less than 3%. (The rest is nuclear and hydroelectric energy, among other sources.)
According to the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, the reliable source of energy industry’s global market trends has fallen to 81.5% of global energy consumption, with renewables accounting for around 8% of global energy usage. Additionally, the report states that solar and wind capacity increased by 67% in 2023, adding more wind and solar capacity than ever before, driving the majority of annual generations.
Wright, whose office did not answer a detailed list of questions, said he would refuse to make similar calculations on the methodological basis.
Killing a life-saving grant: Trump’s cut works to help government work to prevent terrorism
He also ignores the way in which the US energy transition is already going well. Wind and solar are responsible for the significant growth of US power generation, with production from natural gas diminishing, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the government’s leading energy data office. For example, South Dakota gets 80% of its electricity from renewables, while Vermont relies on almost 100%.
Fact aside, Wright begins to present his agenda in ideological terms in his recent remarks, drawing a line between the use of fossil fuels and the conservative fear that American freedom is being attacked. At CPAC, released from his tie, he said since the confirmation hearing he had been forced to wear it after stretching his arms and roaming the brightly lit stage. “Not everyone in the world has access to the freedom and energy we have,” he told the audience. “But in our country, both of these concepts have been subject to great threats over the past four years, and that’s probably why my political career began.
It was a completely different message from Wright, which was delivered before the Senate.
Drill’s Amy Westerbert contributed to the research.
