The U.S. was just 240 years old when, in a televised announcement by her 45th president, she kicked her way out of the Paris Climate Accords. At the time, China was well over 3,000 years old and Guyana was fifty. So all things considered? 240 is still pretty young. Let’s call this moment of bewildering defiance what it really is: puberty.
Puberty means that the U.S. still has a bit of time to grow up and maybe even change her mind. In fact, there is no formal way for a country to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords until November 4, 2020. Coincidentally, that’s the day after U.S. presidential elections.
She’s also got angels on her shoulder that can safeguard the goals set by the Paris Climate Accords: the states. Twenty-three of them have joined the United States Climate Alliance, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, keeping in line with Paris.
Plus, with fresh new faces in Congress, a bold new climate bill – yes, you know the one – has been catalyzing discussions of climate change in more communities than ever.
Yes, puberty is a far more optimistic diagnosis than, say, senility. The fact that climate change has become a front and center topic in the 2020 presidential elections serves as testimony that she is learning from mistakes, maturing with each year. But puberty, as we know, goes hand-in-hand with growing pains.
The graph below shows the projected emissions of the Climate Alliance states, according to the 2018 U.S. Climate Alliance report. Even in the best case scenario, these states won’t meet the Paris Agreement targets.
And in this interactive New York Times article, you can see for yourself what the rest of the country is up to. The article points out that with a carbon tax, a zero-carbon electricity plan, and five more national-level policies, the U.S. might meet the Paris goals for 2025 but would still fall short of the goals set for 2050. To sum it up, as the Climate Action Tracker has done, the U.S. falls into the last and least category when it comes to climate change action: critically insufficient.
Net GHG emissions from Climate Alliance states in million metric tons CO2 equivalent (from the 2018 U.S. Climate Alliance report)
As we go through nationwide turbulence on the question of climate change action, optimistic visions of a greener U.S. have to be tempered with reality. But reality tempers optimism; it doesn’t squash it. This means the U.S. needs to recognize and accept trade-offs: finding bipartisan compromises towards a clean energy transition; enticing oil companies to invest in renewables, not through ideological conversion, but for profit; and investing in interim solutions like natural gas, as the lesser of three evils.
Just to be clear, reality’s not all bad. As un-revolutionary as it may sound, increased profitability, rather than an ethical consensus on climate change, is driving the rise of renewable energy. In fact, there’s more clean-energy awareness than one might think, even in the dirtiest corners of the market. For example, BP, infamous for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, is now singing a much more on-key tune. In their 2019 Energy Outlook, they note that around the world, “renewable energy is the fastest growing source of energy…becoming the largest source of power by 2040.” You know what that means. Profits!
Indeed, Spencer Dale, BP’s chief economist, publicly affirmed BP’s interest in developing renewable resources at the Energy Outlook launch in New York. Going green, Dale said, is no longer just a promise of idyllic sentiment, but a promise of financial gain for BP’s shareholders. The latter, at least, is a motive one can count on. But what does that rapid growth in renewables really look like?
Global primary energy consumption by fuel, in billion tons.
RT denotes “Rapid Transition,” a modeled scenario in line; ET denotes “Evolving Transition,” a modeled scenario assuming trends consistent with historical precedent.
From the 2019 BP Energy Outlook
Keeping in mind that this is on a global scale (shockingly, not everything is about the U.S.), a few general takeaways are clear. Yes, the share of renewables is predicted to increase dramatically by 2040. But gas and oil don’t seem to be going anywhere, even with the commitment of big oil companies to fueling (pun intended) the energy transition. Tough luck.
The role of natural gas in the transition isn’t one that we can close our eyes and wish away. Gas may be the ideal bridge fuel to support the transition through its early stages, especially given that solar and wind are both fluctuating energy sources, and renewable energy storage is in need of major R&D. Natural gas is bountiful, and most importantly, cleaner (emphasis on the er) than oil and coal in terms of carbon emissions. For example, between 2005 and 2015, the share of natural gas in electricity generation in Pennsylvania went up 30%, and their electricity carbon emissions? Down 30%.
It’s difficult to wrap our heads around the fact that natural gas is necessary, and in some sense of the word, good. Much of the U.S.’s natural gas and oil is tapped into through fracking, and fracking is plagued by the slew of potential environmental and human concerns one might expect from blasting highly pressurized, potentially-toxic liquid through tiny cracks in underground shale. In the age of mood-swings and temper tantrums, it’s perhaps a truism that sometimes you win some, and sometimes you lose. But in the spirit of optimism, it may be more apt to say that sometimes? You have to lose some to win some.
It’s not a clear path to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. No matter how optimistic the rhetoric is in this moment of international recognition and cooperation, we’ve got to think growing pains – and how best to mitigate them. The burgeoning role of gas is just one of many more concessions to be made towards realizing dreams of carbon taxes, tightening regulatory policies, and strengthening social support networks. Not to mention growing pains inherent to the international energy scene, where a rapidly growing demand for energy can’t ethically be met by clean development demands.
But the U.S., at least, is young, innovative, and resourceful. Presidential candidate and Washington Governor Jay Inslee, said it best at Columbia’s Global Energy Summit this April: “I believe in the can-do spirit of America.” With a deep understanding of the work needed to move the emissions needle, and a bit of a Machiavellian – or at least bipartisan – approach to policy, the Green New Deal can happen. (Here’s a fun reading for understanding how, written by Jason Bordoff, former Special Assistant to President Obama and founder and director of Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy.)
So, yeah. As an adolescent and a student, America’s report card would say she’s got potential. It would say America’s got talent. But as a country, and as a member of the global world order, the verdict is that America has to get comfortable with trade-offs.