Trump Administration Promotes Natural Gas Expansion as Energy Secretary Wright Argues Energy Poverty Outranks Climate Risk
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has described global energy poverty — affecting roughly 2 billion people who cook and heat with wood, dung, or agricultural waste — as a greater threat to humanity than climate change. The Department of Energy released a report in July 2025, prepared by five scientists at Wright's request, titled "A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate." The report argues that global warming and increased CO2 emissions have, on net, produced benefits including saved lives and improved agricultural productivity.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has made expanding global natural gas access a central priority of the Trump administration's energy agenda, arguing that the deaths caused annually by energy poverty — which he places at 2 to 3 million — outweigh the risks of climate change. Wright, described in a Washington Examiner op-ed as a pioneer in fracking before his cabinet appointment, implemented policies in 2025 that the piece says resulted in record U.S. natural gas and oil production, with natural gas prices remaining low.
In July 2025, the DOE released "A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate," a report Wright commissioned from five scientists described in the Examiner piece as "eminent" and "independent." Wright's foreword to the report states: "Climate change is a challenge — not a catastrophe. But misguided policies based on fear rather than facts could truly endanger human well-being."
The report, as characterized by the Examiner, draws on a 2015 Lancet study of over 74 million deaths across 13 countries from 1985 to 2012, which found that 7.29% of deaths were attributable to cold temperatures versus 0.42% to heat, to argue that warming has saved lives. The report also states that CO2-induced warming has been a "net benefit to U.S. agriculture," that global wildfire coverage is "constant or declining on every continent," that there is "no statistically significant trend" in U.S. hurricane frequency since 1920, and that global average sea level has risen approximately 8 inches since 1900 at a rate of roughly 0.12 inches per year.