US president Donald Trump has not lost any time in putting into practice his pledge to reverse the climate change policies of his predecessors by going straight to the heart of the matter in questioning the classification of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant.
Should he succeed in bringing about the recognition of CO2 as part of the natural environment instead of a toxin, then much of the legislation that drives the climate change agenda in the US would collapse.
This would have repercussions that will be felt worldwide, including Ireland and Europe as a whole.
The first result of such a change is that the drive for ‘net zero’ in America would run into the sands as fossil fuels are used to power the resurgence of its manufacturing base.
Batteries will remain
This does not mean that battery power would disappear overnight; Trump has only said that motorists should have a choice in what they drive, there is no suggestion that electric vehicles (EVs) be legislated against, only that they not be supported by federal funding.
Yet, what happens in the US usually finds its way across the Atlantic and this will likely remain the case despite the new presidency appearing to open up a gulf between itself and Europe over Ukraine.
The new US administration has made it clear that the net zero ambition is more or less dead in America.
However, the three biggest tractor manufacturers in Europe are US-owned and these companies will find themselves serving two distinct markets with the inefficiencies that creates.
John Deere, AGCO and CNH operate on a global basis and with the carbon constrained area of the world now shrinking somewhat, quite how this will affect their plans is still for the future to tell.
However, the pressure to develop battery alternatives to diesel power seems to have eased; they have suddenly become a niche product with the attendant increase in costs.
Developing alternative fuels may also come to be seen as a dead end because how does the case for hydrogen, for instance, stack up when the world’s major economic power has decided that there is no need for it?
Commodity prices
Another knock-on effect is the price of US maize which is supported by the demand for ethanol being used in fuel.
This is another environmental measure that could well be affected by Donald Trump’s desire to drill for more oil rather than continue with the switch to alternative energy sources.
Should the price of oil drop, then the inclusion of ethanol in the nation’s fuel will become ever more uneconomic, reducing both the price and demand for maize which has underpinned the price of tillage crops in the US.
Again, this will not happen in isolation; commodity prices around the world may decline, narrowing tillage margins and further reducing the scope of farmers to invest in new machinery.
CO2 as a plant food
What is not so widely spoken about is that with the increase in CO2 levels, crop yields could follow in an upward trend.
NASA has noted that the world is getting significantly greener and science is aware that photosynthesis thrives on higher CO2 concentrations, yet this is rarely, if ever, mentioned.
The outcome would appear to be lower crop prices but more crop to sell, although it doesn’t appear enough to compensate for the lower margins in the current market.
There is much to consider in the whirlwind of legislation and presidential edicts that have exploded from the Whitehouse over the past few weeks.
But, it is the desire to see CO2 come to be seen as a good, rather than a bad thing, which may have the greatest impact on agriculture on both sides of the Atlantic.
