Trump's Consequential Energy Presidency

Just eight months into his second presidency, a strong case can be made that Donald Trump must now be considered the most consequential energy president in U.S. history. A convergence of major recent international events helps prove the case.

New Lloyd’s of London CEO Patrick Tiernan moved this week to scrap the net-zero policies invoked by his predecessor, an obvious concession to the sea change in energy and climate policy direction underway in the second presidency of Donald Trump.

Lloyd’s previous CEO, John Neal, put in place policies requiring participants in the Lloyd’s insurance market to quit insuring energy projects which don’t conform to the net-zero goals laid out by the 2016 Paris Climate Accords by the year 2030. Neal further pledged to transform the entire Lloyd’s insurance market into a pure net-zero business model by 2050. Neal was basically the insurance industry version of former BP CEO Bernard Looney, not the best model to emulate.

“It is important that Lloyd’s remains apolitical,” Mr. Tiernan said of the company’s change in direction. “The 2050 targets are government targets. We operate in multiple jurisdictions under different governments with different targets. We have to operate under the policies and the laws of where we operate.”