New Yorker: "Denmark Is Sick of Being Bullied by Trump"

Danes feel proud of Ørsted, which has succeeded financially while combatting climate change, a national priority. Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at the Columbia Business School who has co-written a case study on Ørsted, told me that wind power can generate up to a hundred and forty per cent of Denmark’s electricity demand. Ørsted, formerly a state-owned fossil-fuel company, underwent a corporate conversion experience about a decade ago, renaming itself and becoming the world’s largest developer of offshore wind power. Berthelsen, the Danish political consultant, told me, “We think of ourselves as having developed this energy and spread it across the world.” Wagner warned that the abrupt reversal on Revolution Wind would have knock-on effects for the U.S. “What European company’s board is going to sign off on a billion-dollar investment in the U.S. right now?”

In September, a U.S. federal judge ruled in Ørsted’s favor, saying that work on Revolution Wind could resume. But in December the project was blocked again when the Trump Administration froze leases that the Biden Administration had granted to five wind farms off the East Coast, including Revolution Wind. To Wagner, all the back-and-forth looked “erratic and vindictive.” Today, every country’s economy is tied to others, but a small nation that’s as historically dependent on trade as Denmark seems particularly vulnerable to Trump’s caprices.