It has been quite a week.

Normally at this time of the year, that would be because of the headlines created by commitments and consternations at the annual leaders’ summit in Davos.

This time, the inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. President again has cast a large shadow over that, as it has many other things.

As the power transition saw, as predicted, the near-immediate rolling back of many policies from the Joe Biden era, those impacting the transition to a cleaner, greener economy were high up the list.

Chief amongst them was Trump’s order to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the most important initiative to limit global warming, alongside a pledge to accelerate extracting of fossil fuels on home soil.

But as well as that largely symbolic move, there were a host of other changes, including a pause of funding for green industries, relaxing controls on conventional energy infrastructure development and pulling back from pledges on the electric vehicle transition in the U.S.

On the mountainside in Switzerland, some Davos delegates looked on with horror if not surprise. The reaction from many European politicians was one of cool defiance, with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen leading calls for the bloc to stay its course on the transition to a cleaner economy, even if the region remains under pressure to soften its stance in some areas.

“Europe will stay the course, and keep working with all nations that want to protect nature and stop global warming,” she remarked.

The pledge of most European nations to stick to their guns over measures to negate climate change was wholly expected, as was the reaction from Davos given the timing of the inauguration. As the New York Times covered, those renewed commitments came from European politicians and global business leaders at the summit, while Reuters listed the world leaders and organisations that echoed them.

This piece from Time gives a summary of what the executive orders really mean from a climate perspective. “We didn't go back to horses, even though there was a strong horse lobby when cars came,” is an observation from one commentator.

It also makes the point that it’s not as simple as clean energy or ‘dirty’. The U.S. drive for economic growth though AI for example, relies on building many new and large data centres that will consume vast amounts of power.

“Much of that demand will be met with clean energy—in part because it’s cheaper and in part because tech companies investing in AI are willing to spend big to meet their net-zero emissions commitments. But that pressure has also led to plans to greatly expand U.S. natural gas infrastructure,” the piece says.

Regardless of how that all pans out, in the coming months many eyes will be on Europe, including the UK, to see how it responds over climate commitments, energy transition commitments that are intended to drive growth and how it navigates a looming geopolitical battle over trade.

Until then, with business leaders at Davos all delivering their perspectives on where growth will come from and how best to address the world’s bigger challenges, the summit is poised for what Trump says when he addresses it by video this Thursday.