As his time in office winds down, President Joe Biden is taking a number of steps on climate that are likely to be ignored or reversed by the incoming Musk administration and its figurehead president, a man who used to host a game show.
But even if they don’t remain official policy, Biden’s moves also aren’t merely symbolic, either. They set markers for future action — not only by a saner post-MuskTrump federal government, assuming there is one, but also for states and for the rest of the world, where we hear several countries remain not entirely whackadoo. Plus, there’s the added benefit of at least potentially slowing the damage that can be done, since Donald Musk and his minions will at least need to formally reverse the decisions. Just this week, the Biden administration took these steps:
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Tuesday, the Energy Department issued a report finding that the US doesn’t need to boost exports of fossil gas, because (besides that the extra exports would severely impact the climate) our allies’ needs will be met by export terminals already approved or under construction, and because higher gas exports would make domestic energy prices go up sharply. The report could help with lawsuits against approving new export terminals that Trump wants.
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Wednesday, the EPA approved California’s proposal to set emissions rules that would ban the sale of new fossil-fueled vehicles starting in 2035. In his first term, Trump tried to eliminate California’s ability under the Clean Air Act to set stricter emissions requirements than the federal government, and he’ll doubtless reverse this rule as well. But again, it’ll need to go through the normal federal rulemaking process, which could take months and would be subject to lawsuits from California.
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Thursday, Biden announced that the US now has a more ambitious target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as part of its commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement. The country should now aim to cut total emissions by at least 61 percent of 2005 levels by 2035 (and ideally, by up to 66 percent), a far more aggressive target than the 50 to 52 percent reductions Biden pledged at the beginning of his administration.
Let’s keep in mind that several things can be true at once: For starters, the US isn’t currently on track to meet the earlier 50 percent goal by 2035, but if all of Biden’s climate policies were fully enacted — including a full 10 years of clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, EPA limits on emissions from vehicles power plants, and oil production — we would be well on the way.
A recent estimate by the Rhodium Group projected that under current Biden policy, the US is “on track for a 38-56% reduction in GHG emissions below 2005 levels in 2035.” It’s a big range, dependent on a lot of variables, not the least of which is the criterion that the Biden policies continue, which is unfortunately no longer in the cards. How badly Trump manages to bollix up the climate remains unknown; it’s why we have to fight every last rollback tooth and nail.
Nonetheless, it makes perfect sense that Biden would call for a next step. The rest of the planet is still watching the US, and we need to start thinking now about where we’ll take the climate fight after Trump, assuming there’s still a US to set climate policies. By the time we return to sane climate policy, we’ll be in a deeper climate hole, though how deep depends on how successfully we resist the greedheads currently in power, starting right now.
As The New York Times points out (gift link), Biden’s new emissions targets are not binding, and won’t even present Trump with an administrative or legislative roadblock like the EPA rules or the IRA will. He has already announced that he plans to leave the Paris agreement again.
But Biden administration officials said they hoped it would encourage state and local governments to continue to cut the emissions that are rapidly heating the planet, even if the federal government pulls back.
Further, in a video address announcing the new goal, Biden said that even after he leaves office, the progress he started will continue because the energy transition has built up momentum well beyond the federal government
“American industry will keep inventing and keep investing,” he said. “State, local, and tribal governments will keep stepping up. And together, we will turn this existential threat into a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform our nation for generations to come.”
There is a great deal of mischief that Trump can do. If he manages to roll back most or all of Biden’s climate policies — not guaranteed, for reasons we’ve already discussed — the Rhodium study found that US emissions would drop only to about 24 to 40 percent of 2005 levels. That’s partly locked in by what remains the single biggest factor in US emissions reductions, the still-increasing transition of electricity generation from coal to fossil gas, which is still a nasty source of greenhouse emissions, but not as unspeakably bad as coal was. Coal simply can’t keep up with the lower prices of gas or even renewables, so there’s really no bringing it back at this point.
And as happened under Trump I, blue states, which have already taken significant steps to change their energy mixes, are already planning to work together to curb emissions, and to meet the new, more ambitious Biden goal.
On Thursday, a bipartisan coalition of governors from 24 states announced that they would work together to try to meet the new goal. “This new collective goal will serve as our North Star,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, said in a statement.
These are very dangerous times for life on this pretty blue world, but as we have been saying since right after Election Day, the climate picture in 2024 is in fact much better than it was right after Trump was elected eight years ago. The energy transition is genuinely underway, and while Trump can do plenty to slow it, clean energy is already becoming far cheaper than the dirty stuff.
And as UC Santa Barbara energy policy boffin Leah Stokes notes in a must-read interview with Yale Climate 360, that could make all the difference. Majorities of voters in red states may think climate change is a hoax and green energy a scam, but the manufacturers building new battery plants and factories for everything in the clean energy supply chain from solar panels to EVs and their components know that they are making a hell of a lot of money, and they have very vocal lobbyists now.
Just as the economics of gas versus coal has led to widespread abandonment of coal as a fuel for power plants, there’s every reason to believe that the efficiency and lower costs of renewables will continue to drive fossil fuels toward an oily grave over time. Says Stokes, even after Trump pulls the US out of Paris again,
I think there’s actually still going to be a lot of progress. The interesting thing about the clean energy transition is that it has a lot to do with companies investing in and making money from the transition. I think that that is going to be the engine that keeps progress moving forward in the absence of federal leadership.
Remember, the auto industry may not care about climate, but it wants regulations that it can be sure of, not constant ping-ponging from one policy to another. Same for the rest of the economy.
You might not have expected us to say this, but by Crom, it just might be that naked capitalist desire for profit — at least, from energy and manufacturing capitalists who aren’t in the doomed oil industry — could turn out to be the best friends the climate movement ever had.
Open Thread!
[NYT (gift link) / White House Fact Sheet / Rhodium Group / Associated Press / Yale Environment 360]
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