What Chris Wright Gets Wrong

CLAIM: “Wind and solar, the darlings of the last administration and so much of the world today, supply roughly 3 percent of global primary energy.”

REALITY: Wind and solar now supply about 8 percent of total world energy use, more than double Wright’s number. And that percentage is growing fast. Wind and solar contributed 40 percent of the global energy increase in 2023, making it the largest source of new energy in the world, while the energy think tank Ember estimates that renewables provided about one-third of global electricity generation in 2024. They also topped coal to become the world’s largest source of electricity in the first half of 2025—the first time that this has happened. 

The transition in the United States is well underway as well. Coal once provided half the electricity nationally; now it’s down to about 16 percent, below that of renewable energy. Renewables also accounted for 96 percent of new power capacity in 2024 and are on track to surge again this year. Even with this administration’s attacks on clean energy, the United States is forecast to add 395 gigawatts of new wind, solar, and storage between 2025 and 2030. 

Wright is correct about one thing: Renewable energy investment is extremely popular. As this recent International Energy Agency report points out, “clean electricity investment ‘towers above’ fossil fuel sources by 12:1 in the advanced economies, by 6:1 in China, and by 2:1 in other emerging markets and developing economies.” Global solar investment reached $252 billion in the first half of 2025 while wind reached $126 billion, with offshore wind accounting for most of the increase over the last year. Meanwhile, oil and gas demand projections for the future continue to reflect hubris, not reality. The transition to renewables is happening; the only question is whether the Trump administration will support it or needlessly (and recklessly) fight it. 

CLAIM: “Everywhere wind and solar penetration have increased significantly, prices on the grid went up and stability of the grid went down.”

REALITY: Renewable energy is now the cheapest source of electricity generation, and it’s delivering lower prices and more reliable power. A recent POLITICO analysis of U.S. Energy Information Administration data found that of the 22 states that drew higher-than-average shares of their power from wind and solar, 17 had below-average electricity prices. 

Texas has the fastest-growing deployment of solar and storage, and analysts say that’s one reason prices have not spiked there. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas concluded in its report on how Texas electricity prices were moderated in 2024: “Another hot summer in Texas put the electric grid to the test, but increased capacity from solar and battery storage met the call.” Just this past summer, energy use in Texas shot up, but power prices declined, mostly due to record generation from solar and storage, according to Texas grid expert Doug Lewin. 

Meanwhile, unsubsidized utility-scale solar and onshore wind remain the most cost-effective forms of new-build energy generation.

In terms of reliability, recent grid instability has been driven largely by failing gas plants. During the catastrophic Texas freeze of 2021 (Winter Storm Uri) and the Christmas storm across the mid-Atlantic in 2022 (Winter Storm Elliott), gas systems repeatedly froze and caused blackouts. 

During Winter Storm Elliot, for example, natural gas plants accounted for more than 70 percent of all unplanned outages across the mid-Atlantic grid. As Arctic air swept through the Midwest in January 2025, wind and solar kept the grid from failing. And experts say that solar with storage played a significant role in maintaining grid stability under intense heat conditions this past summer. In Texas, wholesale energy prices fell more than 70 percent between summer 2023 and summer 2024, specifically linked to the growth of solar and battery storage.

In short, wind and solar have helped strengthen grid resilience and reduce costs in many regions across the country.

CLAIM: “Coal transformed our world and made it better, extended life expectancy, and grew opportunities, and coal globally will be the largest source of electricity for decades to come. That’s not a policy, that’s not a desire, that’s just a reality.”

REALITY: Coal did help power the Industrial Revolution, but it also choked cities in smog, poisoned our water supply, and fueled the climate crisis we’re now trying to address. Beginning in the early 1970s, the United States started curbing the sulfur dioxide and other pollutants spewing from coal plants, delivering tremendous public health benefits and preventing widespread damage from acid rain. And now, clean, cheaper energy sources have already surpassed coal globally, so the assertion that it will be the world’s largest power source for the foreseeable future is already incorrect. Even in China, long seen as coal’s final stronghold, coal now plays a diminishing role. 

Wright himself implicitly acknowledges coal’s diminished importance. The day the administration announced new measures to prop up coal, Wright said on Fox Business that coal should remain 15–16 percent of the power on the grid. That’s about where it is now—a far cry from the more than 50 percent of electricity it delivered about two decades ago. 

Ultimately, the United States clinging to coal isn’t “realism”; it’s regression. Coal is not bouncing back. The only question is what the timeline of its decline will look like. Meanwhile, the future of both economic opportunity and public health depends on accelerating the shift to clean energy.

CLAIM: “Beautiful, clean coal will be essential to powering America’s reindustrialization and winning the AI race.”

REALITY: There’s no such thing as “clean coal.” Coal remains the dirtiest, most polluting energy source. It has the highest emissions intensity among fossil fuels and is responsible for deadly toxic air and water contamination. Coal also cannot compete. No new coal plant has been built in the United States in more than a decade; where it was once by far the largest source of electricity, it now sits fourth behind gas, renewables, and nuclear. 

What’s actually essential to powering America’s reindustrialization and the AI boom is reliable, affordable, and scalable clean energy, the very renewables the second Trump administration is trying to kneecap. By blocking investments in solar, wind, storage, and grid modernization, the administration isn’t fueling innovation; it’s sabotaging progress to protect coal and fossil fuel interests, at the expense of American competitiveness. 

CLAIM: “There are no oil and gas subsidies. In the United States, oil and gas and coal are huge taxpayers and don’t have any subsidies that I’m aware of. And I’ve been in the business for 40 years. So, if you can find the subsidies, tell me where they are.” 

REALITY: This extensive New York Times piece shows exactly where they are. Fossil fuel producers have benefited from favorable treatment in the U.S. tax code for more than a century, and they still do today. In 2023 alone, coal, oil, and gas interests received more than $16 billion in subsidies, including deductions for drilling costs and incentives for producing certain types of coal. Estimates put the true figure north of $34 billion annually. And while the administration has worked to scale back clean energy tax credits, it has simultaneously expanded fossil fuel support, including $625 million to refurbish aging coal plants; new tax breaks, lease mandates, and royalty reductions worth billions of dollars more; and a self-professed “white glove concierge service” for new oil and gas permits. In other words, the so-called level playing field Wright claims to champion is anything but.

CLAIM: “A warmer planet with more CO2 is better for growing plants.” 

REALITY: Greater carbon dioxide in the atmosphere only helps plants under stable conditions with sufficient water, nutrients, and predictable weather. Climate change disrupts all of that, increasing the occurrence of erratic, extreme weather and affecting both nutrient and water availability. And as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change points out, the extra CO2 uptake could be sharply limited by nutrient shortages. In other words, as rising atmospheric CO2 drives climate disruptions, it can make plant growth harder, not easier.

CLAIM: “We have far more people die of the cold than die of the heat.”

REALITY: This is true but highly misleading without context. While more people currently die from cold than heat, that balance only holds below the 1.5–2 degrees Celsius warming threshold that scientists warn we must avoid. Beyond that, heat-related deaths rise sharply and quickly outpace any decline in cold-related deaths, alongside surging risks from wildfires, crop failures, extreme storms, disease, and displacement, all of which are already happening and which this cold versus hot dichotomy ignores. 

CLAIM: “Climate change, for impacting the quality of your life, is not incredibly important. The planet has warmed about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in 130 years. I could change the temperature of this room 2 degrees Fahrenheit over 20 minutes, and you wouldn’t notice.”

REALITY: This comparison is profoundly misleading. A short-term, localized temperature shift in a room is nothing like a permanent, global rise of the same amount. An increase of 2 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1.1 degrees Celsius) in the planet’s average surface temperature represents an enormous accumulation of heat across oceans, land, and atmosphere. This is enough to melt glaciers and ice sheets; raise sea levels; intensify heat waves, droughts, and wildfires; and destabilize ecosystems worldwide. Scientists warn that as warming exceeds 1.5–2 degrees Celsius (1.8–3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the risks of dangerous, irreversible climate impacts sharply increase. And as this recent National Academy of Sciences report makes clear, the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare from climate change is beyond scientific dispute.

What feels trivial in a room is transformative—and devastating—for an entire planet.