Many environmentalists have bemoaned the election results as nothing short of a “nightmare” for international efforts to address climate change. But a new report by researchers that Time Magazine has called “heroes of the environment” illustrates why that view is actually irrational.

Ted Nordhaus and Jessica Lovering of the environmental think tank, The Breakthrough Institute, ask the question in a new analysis: “Does Climate Policy Matter?” The answer is an emphatic “no.” The report finds CO2 reductions have thus far been driven by market forces rather than “emissions targets and timetables or international agreements intended to legally constrain national emissions.” To put it another way, increased use of natural gas — not government policy —has driven down emissions and will likely to continue doing so in the future, regardless of the political landscape. From the report,

“… if results to date are any guide, real progress on decarbonization primarily depends upon specific domestic energy, industrial, and innovation policies, not emissions targets and timetables or international agreements intended to legally constrain national emissions.”

It is for that reason that the analysis finds that the Trump administration’s expected opposition to the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and the U.S.’s Paris commitments are largely irrelevant,

“It’s certainly possible that a Trump administration will drop the Clean Power Plan and renege on the Paris accord. But as long as it keeps the nation’s nuclear power plants online, continues tax incentives for wind and solar energy and stays out of the way of the shale revolution… the United States might outperform the commitments that the Obama administration made in Paris…” (em...

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