Climate change and its causes were not much discussed during the 2016 U.S. general election, but the issue has not gone away. If the scientific finding that human activities are causing climate change with greenhouse-gas emissions is correct, reductions in GHG emissions will be inevitable. For the energy construction industry, that would mean more renewable-energy power plants, fewer coal and natural-gas plants, fewer oil and gas pipelines, new energy-storage projects, possibly even carbon capture and storage, more nuclear power construction and similar market changes.
A small but influential segment of the population has obstructed action to reduce emissions mostly on ideological, rather than scientific, grounds, citing concerns about interference with the operation of the free-market economy, building large government bureaucracies and similar curtailments of liberty. But that resistance is beginning to crumble.