Renewable energy sources will continue to grow
in the US despite the antipathy of the incoming
Trump administration, says President Obama.
The President says it's unlikely that power
companies will switch back to coal, regardless of
Mr Trump's plans to boost production.
Mr Trump has also said he wants the US to pull
out of the Paris climate agreement.
But President Obama says this would see the US
lose its "seat at the table".
The President's views appeared in a policy forum
article in the highly regarded research journal,
Science.
The editors believe it is the first time that a
sitting President has written such a feature.
No going back
In the article, the President argues that a
"massive scientific record" shows that climate
change is "real and cannot be ignored".
Mr Obama also details the reasons he believes
the trend towards a low-carbon economy is now
"irreversible".
He points to the fact that between 2008 and
2015 the US economy grew by 10% while
emissions of CO2 fell by almost the same
amount.
Mr Obama says that US businesses have
increasingly seen the financial benefits from
cutting carbon through greater energy efficiency.
Citing the examples of corporations like General
Motors and Alcoa, the President says the US
consumed 2.5% less energy in 2015 than in 2008
while the economy was now a tenth bigger.
There would be a huge financial penalty if
economies don't reduce their emissions, Mr
Obama writes.
If CO2 continues to rise then global temperatures
could go up by 4 degrees C by the end of this
century, and that could cost the world economy
4% of GDP.
In US terms that would equate to the loss of
federal revenue of between $340bn and $690bn
every year.
Coal on the dole
Pointedly, Mr Obama says that 2.2 million
Americans now work in jobs connected to energy
efficiency - double the 1.1 million that work in
fossil fuel production and electricity generation.
Thanks to hydraulic fracturing, gas has emerged
as a transformative energy source, now
accounting for 33% of US electricity production.
Despite Mr Trump's plans to revive the coal
industry by cutting red tape, "it is unlikely that
utilities will change course and choose to build
coal-fired power plants, which would be more
expensive than natural gas plants, regardless of
any near-term changes in federal policy."
Even states that supported Donald Trump in the
presidential election had moved heavily to
renewables. Iowa generated 32% of their
electricity in 2015 from wind, up from 8% in 2008.
On the Paris climate agreement, Mr Obama said
this was a "fundamental shift in the diplomatic
landscape which has already yielded substantial
dividends".
Pulling out of the agreement, as Mr Trump has
mulled doing, would see the United States lose its
seat at the table, and be unable to hold other
countries to their commitments, the President
wrote. Continued participation in the Paris
process, Mr Obama said, would yield great benefit
for the American people and the international
community.
However, the outgoing president was careful to
offer an olive branch of sorts to President-elect
Trump. Mr Obama argued that the targets that
the US signed up to in the Paris agreement could
be achieved in many different ways and "this
does not mean that the next Administration has
to follow identical domestic policies".
