Former US Vice President Al Gore has deemed the Trump administration’s attack on the US offshore wind sector as “insane”.
Gore was speaking to Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein at the annual World Economic Forum conference in Davos Switzerland, in remarks first reported by Bloomberg.
“We have to solve the climate crisis,” Gore said. “We really don’t have any choice about this.”
In December Trump’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sent near-identical letters to the five different US offshore wind farms in construction ordering them to stop work, citing national security concerns.
Orsted’s 704MW Revolution Wind and 924MW Sunrise Wind, Dominion Energy’s 2.4GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW), Equinor’s 810MW Empire Wind 1, and Iberdrola/CIP’s 806WM Vineyard Wind 1 all stopped construction.
Revolution Wind, CVOW, and Empire Wind 1 have since won injunctions from federal courts blocking enforcement of the shutdown orders.