Net Zero Is Dead and Gone

Stephen Moore on Aug 18, 2026

It was only a few years ago when the climate change alarms and green energy fad were all the rage at the White House and corporate board rooms. Former President Joe Biden's policies were all tilted to ending fossil fuels, and many of America's biggest corporations embraced the concept of net-zero fossil fuels. This was the movement during the Biden years to eliminate virtually ALL oil, natural gas and coal production, and replace these energy sources with windmills, solar panels and electric vehicles.

This goal was pure virtue-signaling, and it never made any practical sense. Roughly 70% of American energy comes from fossil fuels, and only about 10% comes from "green energy." Studies showed that the initiative would have decimated the U.S. economy: millions of American jobs lost, hundreds of billions of dollars of lost GDP, and much higher energy costs for American businesses and families.

It was an "unaffordability" project at a time when Americans are demanding lower, not higher, costs. It was all pain and no gain. Even if the U.S. had reduced its fossil fuel usage, it would have had only a tiny impact on total global emissions because China and India were opening up far more coal plants than America was shutting down.

Washington spent hundreds of billions of dollars on taxpayer subsidies to promote wind and solar, yet it remained as stalled out as the EV plants that are shutting down across the country.

Good news: The net-zero movement is dead -- or at least on life support. A new study that I coauthored for Unleash Prosperity finds that Wall Street's once-aggressive embrace of net-zero climate policies has been reversed. Six of the largest U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo have completely withdrawn from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.

What a reversal this is: The net-zero movement once included a powerful coalition of financial institutions representing 140 member banks and $75.5 trillion in assets.

There are a few financial institutions -- such as Morgan Stanley and State Street -- that still embrace some of these radical regulations, but not many.

Much of this never made sense given that AI and data center energy needs will double or triple our electric power demands over the next two decades. That will require an all-of-the above approach to meet those needs and to keep power affordable for our businesses and families.

It also made no sense because America has the cleanest coal and 600 years of reserves -- more than any other nation. We also have several hundred years of clean and cheap natural gas, which is critical to keeping the lights on, American factories humming and air conditioning running.

Of course, to meet those energy needs, we also need to be using more nuclear power, which produces little to no greenhouse gas emissions. Good news on that front: For the first time in decades, Americans now support nuclear power as well.

The radical environmental groups haven't given up, and they will surely try another comeback. They're now blaming forest fires on climate change -- even though globally there has been no upward trend in recent decades despite the deadly fires in North America this summer.

One country that hasn't backed off the green energy fad is Germany. What a debacle. Once the manufacturing and engineering hub of Europe, the country has deindustrialized without access to cheap fossil fuels. It's spent nearly half a trillion dollars on "Energiewende" wind turbines -- while shutting off much of its natural gas usage. Its power costs are now nearly double what the rest of Europe and the U.S. companies pay. Factories are shutting down.

The collapse of the net-zero movement here at home is a victory for economic reality, common sense and American energy abundance.

Stephen Moore is a former Trump senior economic adviser and the cofounder of Unleash Prosperity, which advocates for education freedom for all children.