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Secretary Wright Debates Energy Subsidies, Coal, and Climate at the New York Times Climate Forward Event, Sept. 24, 2025

September 25, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:34:37

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

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined New York Times climate correspondent David Gelles at the Climate Forward event on September 24, 2025, according to the Department of Energy posting of the conversation. Challenged on the administration’s posture toward wind and solar, Wright said, as he stated it, that neither premise was true: the administration was not taking energy sources off the grid, had made an effort to end wind and solar subsidies that are 33 years old — time, as he put it, for industries to walk on their own — and had dialogues ongoing with offshore wind developers with no final decisions made. He described his own standard, as he stated it, as affordable, reliable, secure energy that betters human lives, rather than all-of-the-above.

On coal, Wright said, as he stated the figures, that coal has been the largest source of electricity globally for 125 years, that in the United States it fell from over 50 percent of electricity to 15 or 16 percent because it was outcompeted by cheap pipeline natural gas — the biggest driver, as he stated it, of reduced U.S. emissions and cleaner air — and that shutting down plants that work today is how electricity prices rise at the start of an AI race and a re-industrialization drive. He closed by saying, as he stated it, that climate change is a very real thing he is passionate about, that growing natural gas to displace coal and oil and growing nuclear are the things that can move the needle on decarbonization, and that IPCC data show extreme weather is not getting worse in the United States or on average globally, as he stated it.

Why it matters

The Climate Forward conversation is Wright’s longest adversarial-format defense of the administration’s energy course in 2025 — subsidies, coal, and climate — delivered to a skeptical audience rather than a friendly interviewer.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins David Gelles from The New York Times at Climate Forward – September 24, 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.