Trump's UN speech reveals inconvenient truth of massive green energy costs

Fox News ^ | September 25, 2025 1:41pm EDT | Bjorn Lomborg

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Germany, Spain and UK pay double or triple US rates despite huge renewable investments

At the Sept. 23, 2025, U.N. General Assembly, President Donald Trump drew global headlines by blasting what he called the "extreme cost" of the green transition, arguing that climate alarmism is impoverishing ordinary people while enriching elites. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s rhetoric, he touched on an inconvenient truth: despite endless assurances from campaigners and institutions like the U.N., World Bank, and World Economic Forum, wind and solar are still not delivering cheap energy. In fact, they are making electricity more expensive. 

For years, media and green advocates have insisted that solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of electricity. This claim is central to the idea that a green transition is inevitable and beneficial — even under a second Trump administration. But two decades of evidence shows the opposite. The countries that have added the most solar and wind also have the highest power costs. 

The big lie and the awkward truth 

The claim of "cheap" solar and wind is built on a sleight of hand. These sources are indeed often competitive when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. But modern societies need power 24/7. When the sun is not shining and the wind not blowing, countries must rely on costly backup — mostly fossil fuels. Factoring in these costs reveals that renewables are far from cheap. 

WORLD LEADERS LAUGH, SQUIRM AS TRUMP BLASTS UN ON CLIMATE, UKRAINE, GAZA AT GENERAL ASSEMBLY

A study of China found solar’s real cost was twice that of coal. Research about Germany and Texas showed that once backup costs are included, solar and wind go from appearing slightly cheaper...

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Germany, Spain and UK pay double or triple US rates despite huge renewable investments

Replace "despite" with "because of" and this excerpt makes sense.

[SunkenCiv]

The rest of the Bjorn Lomborg keyword, sorted:

• The World is not as gloomy as the Media would have you believe [10/26/2023]
• Fact-Blockers [12/01/2021]
• Propaganda Alert: Over 200 Health Journals Whine for 'Urgent Action' on 'Climate Crisis' [09/07/2021]
• Here We Go Again: UN Climate Panel Continues Decades-Long Climate Fear Porn Tradition [08/09/2021]
• WATCH: Hoover Institution Visiting Fellow Rips Biden's 'Unrealistic' Climate Fanaticism [04/26/2021]
• WATCH: Hoover Visiting Fellow Bjorn Lomborg Slaps Down Leftist Climate Alarmism on Kudlow [02/26/2021]
• A Winning Trifecta for Climate Science and Rationality [06/27/2020]
• Stopping the spread of coronavirus vs. total economic meltdown | 60 Minutes Australia [04/12/2020]
• Empty Gestures on Climate Change: Your Electric Car & Vegan Diet Are Pointless Virtue-Signaling [12/30/2019]
• Graphene and Water Treatment [08/31/2019]
• What science could teach Ocasio-Cortez about climate change [01/29/2019]
• The 11 cities most likely to run out of drinking water - like Cape Town [02/12/2018]
• Gore's 'Inconvenient Sequel' lands on Oscar shortlist despite disputed climate science [12/10/2017]
• Bjorn Lomborg: Trump's climate plan might not be so bad after all [11/22/2016]
• Don't be fooled - Elon Musk's electric cars aren't about to save the planet [04/07/2016]
• Let's Not Be All Wet About Water [03/29/2015]
• Nestle chairman: Time to turn off the water taps [03/24/2015]
• Bill Gates: From stinky poop to fresh water -- Omni Processor [01/08/2015]
• Watch Bill Gates Test A New Machine That Turns Poop Into Clean Water [01/06/2015]
• The Original Sin of Global Warming [02/27/2014]
• Bjorn Lomborg (The skeptical environmentalist): The False Promise of Green Jobs [02/11/2011]
• Cool, Dispassionate Reason (Bjorn Lomborg's 'Cool It' is the antidote to Al Gore's climate alarmism) [11/19/2010]
• Trailer for 'Cool It,' a New Documentary to Counter Al Gore's Nonsense [11/12/2010]
• Disputing The Skeptical Environmentalist [10/29/2010]
• Bjørn Lomborg: $100bn a year needed to fight climate change (Climate Skeptic Changes Tune?) [08/31/2010]
• ORT (FReeper survival thread) [08/20/2010]
• Skeptics score a win against alarmists [12/08/2009]
• Under heat, climate-change contrarian won't wilt (Bjorn Lomborg interview) [11/28/2009]
• Warming Up for a Climate Change Fight - Obama's getting ready for the U.N. global warming... [09/03/2009]
• Bjørn Lomborg: Mr. Gore, Your Solution to Global Warming Is Wrong [07/22/2009]
• The Climate-Industrial Complex (companies are pushing this scam to collect taxpayer cash, i.e. GE) [05/20/2009]
• Global Warming Is Manageable -- if We're Smart (interview of Bjorn Lomborg) [05/16/2009]
• Don't Waste Time Cutting Emissions [04/25/2009]
• CO2 Rules: The Anti-Stimulus [03/24/2009]
• The Rational Environmentalist - Bjorn Lomborg on the priorities that should come before global... [10/03/2008]
• The global warming hype [09/18/2008]
• A Chilling View of Warming (Review of Thomas Friedman book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded") [09/13/2008]
• Lights out? ( B. Lomborg Pops the Enviros bubble ) [04/12/2008]
• Time Magazine's Polar Bear Paradox: Curbing Global Warming ... To Hunt Polar Bears [09/25/2007]
• The Anti-Cassandra: Bjorn Lomborg's advice on global warming ignores much bad news [09/04/2007]
• Stern Review (Bjørn Lomborg on the Global Warming Report) [11/02/2006]
• Climate change can wait. World health can't (What to do with $50 Billion) [07/02/2006]
• A Cadre of Environmentalists Exhort: 'I Saw the Light!' [08/30/2005]
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• 'Ignore Global Warming,' Says Former Greenpeace Member [12/15/2004]
• Aliens Cause Global Warming (MUST READ) [12/13/2004]
• Michael Crichton -- Planet Earth's novelist of doom [12/09/2004]
• Putting the world to rights [Copenhagen Consensus] [06/04/2004]
• Case Against Scientifically Honest Bjorn Lomborg Dismissed [03/13/2004]
• Court Voids a Bush Move on Energy [01/14/2004]
• Need source of quote by Tim Wirth (Even if global warming is a hoax - lie about it) [02/08/2003]
• A Danish Galileo [01/17/2003]
• Pacific Ocean Temperature Changes Point To Natural Climate Variability [11/13/2002]
• Please Freep my amazon.com review of Bjorn Lomborg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist." [06/19/2002]
• Bjorn Lomborg's critics have ignored 95% of his book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist." [06/01/2002]
• The Skeptical Enviromentalist Replies [04/17/2002]
• Green with Ideology - The hidden agenda behind the attacks on The Skeptical Environmentalist. [04/15/2002]

[SunkenCiv]

also “renewable investments” should be “money-laundering and pork barrel projects”.

[from occupied ga]

I tried to find out the cost of Georgia Power's solar farms. Neither GA Power nor the GA Public service commission seem to have published the data. Nor can I find the projected maintenance costs nor annual depreciation.

This leads me to believe that the costs are embarrassingly high. The morons at the EPA are forcing the closure of Plant Bowen - a very efficient and low coast coal plant - due to "Greenhouse gas" bullshit:

The utility’s parent company, Southern Co., had already signaled late last year that it intended to retire about 55% of its coal fleet over the next decade as the company works toward its goal to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

The SOCO CEO is a moron.

[Blennos]

Exactly.

[packrat35]

Just imagine how much better the world would be if they had not wasted trillions on the “green energy” boondoggle?

Inflation would be much lower as well as energy costs and jobs supporting those sectors.

[Sam Gamgee]

I know its sad. America could have lifted entire nations out of poverty for the money spent on “green” initiatives.

[Thapsus_epiphany]

Imagine having to borrow money from your bank every time you fill your auto’s gas tank?

That’s what Green Energy does because it cannot stand on its own as a source of energy.

It requires massive amounts of taxpayer money, which left wing governments hide from their citizens.

Trump is absolutely correct, Green Energy is a scam, probably the biggest ever.

Reject EVs, hybrids and anything to do with the radical enviros, they’re brainwashed morons.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "I know its sad. America could have lifted entire nations out of poverty for the money spent on 'green' initiatives."

But the few and politically well-connected wouldn't have made bundle!

Here's a graphic of the various "free" nations of the West and NATO as they rank on being "gouged" by BigGreen.

Source: Why are Britain's power prices the highest in the world? Electric Insights / drax

And those "wise" Brits and Germans lead the way, followed by Belgium, the home of the EU and NATO....

[Organic Panic]

MOre oil, natural gas, and coal for us.

[VanShuyten]

One of my favorite Obama quotes:

“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I’m capping greenhouse gases,”

[oldtech]

I believe the “renewable energy” fiasco was spotted almost as soon as it was started. Anyone who could read with a reasonable degree of accuracy should have figured this out long ago.