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Wright Tells CNN Europe's Net-Zero Path Raised Prices and Deindustrialized

September 25, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:07:38

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined CNN after the network played remarks from the European Commission president defending renewables as good for the climate, jobs, and energy independence, and rejecting President Trump’s description of the climate push as a con job. Asked whether Europe is wrong, Wright said about $5 trillion has been spent over the last 20 years, mostly on wind, solar, batteries, and transmission, and that those sources supply 2.6 percent of global energy today.

Wright said the main impacts of the net-zero pursuit have been more expensive energy for early movers, deindustrialization as industry leaves Germany, the United Kingdom, and Belgium for Asia, where goods are produced with coal instead of natural gas and shipped back on diesel-powered ships, and reduced progress on energy access. He noted two billion people cook daily meals burning wood and dung indoors, causing, in his telling, two million needless deaths.

The interview also covered Russian energy revenue, with Wright saying far more money flows to Russia for oil and natural gas than for uranium, wishing the uranium problem could be eliminated immediately while acknowledging any cutoff would not come in time to end the war.

Why it matters

Wright’s CNN appearance carries the administration’s anti-net-zero argument to a skeptical audience with specific figures — $5 trillion spent for 2.6 percent of global energy — that frame the case for the U.S. fossil-fuel expansion.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins CNN’s Kate Bolduan – September 25, 2025”, 2025-09-25 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-09-25). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.