A cornerstone of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign promises to also be a cornerstone of his second term: Energy. Lifting the slogan "Drill, Baby, Drill" from former Republican vice presidential nominee, Alaska's own Sarah Palin, probably got him a lot of votes from people who are tired of taking out second mortgages to pay their heating bills. 

But as it happens, this isn't just a phenomenon in the United States. All over the globe, more and more political figures are telling the climate scolds to shut up and let people get on with producing the abundant and affordable energy that the modern world can't do without. A piece that ran Sunday at the Daily Sceptic by economist and CO2 Coalition Dr. Tilak K. Doshi makes the case for a global return to energy sanity that may already be underway.

In a speech and Q&A session on January 7th, the President-elect stated that both climate alarmism and Biden’s energy policies are “huge scams”; that he would terminate U.S. participation in the UN’s Paris Climate Agreement; that he would rescind Biden’s cynical permitting “pause” on LNG export infrastructure development allegedly to assess its impact on U.S. energy security and domestic natural gas prices; that he would do away with Biden’s EV mandates “very quickly”; that he would “un-ban” Biden’s blanket offshore oil and gas drilling ban; that he would rescind all the actions taken by the Biden regulators to disadvantage or ban gas appliances and stoves; and that he would unwind Biden’s offshore wind boondoggle. He has also vowed to rescind unspent funds earmarked for climate provisions contained in the euphemistically named, boondoggle-laden Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

We'll hear more about this starting Monday, January 20th, when Donald Trump resumes his seat at the Resolute Desk, and that's for sure and for certain.

This backlash against the climate scolds and their "green energy" horse squeeze is happening in Europe, where the GDP of the Eurozone, on parity with the United States a few years ago, has dropped to less than half of that.

Sky-high labour and business operating costs, caused by the myriad regulations of over-reaching bureaucrats and among the world’s highest energy prices brought about by the follies of the EU’s and U.K.’s “climate leadership” policies of the past two decades, have cost Europe dearly. In 2008, the EU and U.S. economies were neck and neck. Today, the U.S. economy is 50% larger than its hapless ally across the Atlantic.

A growing ‘greenlash’ against the environmental agenda in Europe and U.K. – along with the rejection of mass immigration and the open-ended commitment to funding Ukraine’s war – has led to the rise of populist “far-Right” political parties. They have achieved significant success in regional and national elections in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, France, Germany and the U.K.

President Trump has allies on the climate front among European leaders as well. 

There are other leaders in the EU that share Mr. Trump’s opposition to the fundamentalist beliefs of the climate church. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban dismisses EU plans to tackle climate change as a “utopian fantasy”. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has pointedly stated that “ecology has been militarily occupied from the Left” and that “Greta Thunberg’s ideology will lead us to lose thousands of companies and millions of jobs in Europe”. Parties opposed to the unconstrained green climate agenda are now in governing coalitions in Finland, Sweden and Austria.

And even in the Middle East, at the COP24 Climate Summit, there are voices of reason speaking out.

Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the President of the COP28 climate summit and CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said pointedly in an interview: “You’re asking for a phase-out of fossil fuels… Please, help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

Sanity!

See Related: Trump Vows to 'Immediately' Overturn Biden Drilling Ban - but It May Not Be That Easy

Alaska Sues Biden Administration Over New Decision Restricting ANWR Energy Production

The outgoing administration has done inestimable damage to the American energy picture. President Biden has virtually banned all offshore drilling anywhere on the continental shelf, including not only in the lower 48 but also here in Alaska. I should note that roughly half of the population of the Great Land lives in the Anchorage metropolitan area, that those people are heavily dependent on natural gas from Cook Inlet for heating and electricity - and Joe Biden has shut any future Cook Inlet exploration down. Biden has slammed the door on most of our possible North Slope production. His administration has been one of the most energy-hostile administrations in the history of the republic.

But they're leaving now. Trump is back, and "Drill, Baby, Drill" is the new energy policy.

I have not always been optimistic about global energy policy. The greens and the climate scolds seem to have the ears of too many people in positions of power. But that's changing now. In Europe, it's changing. In America, it's changing. All over the world, it's changing. People are beginning to understand that we can have both: A clean environment and cheap, abundant, and reliable energy. People also understand the value of cheap, reliable energy; it's a lesson brought home to them every time they pay their heating and electric bills or fill their cars up with gas.

The climate, yes, is changing. It always has. It always will. The northern hemisphere, barring a few side jaunts like the Little Ice Age, has been slowly warming since the last major glaciation, about 12,000 years ago. This warming is not a reason to destroy our modern, technological lifestyles, nor is it a reason to forgo ramping up our primary form of energy production that truly is "green" and emissions-free - nuclear power.

The times, they are a-changing, and it looks like for the better. And our incoming president is leading the way.