Climate Activists Have Lost Sight of Their Mission

The Washington Post / Robert Gebelhoff

14:19 JST, August 13, 2024

Which is the more important fight: the one against fossil fuels or the one against climate change? Listening to many climate activists these days, it seems their answer is the former, the latter be damned.

The latest example is a throwdown over a bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Joe Manchin III (I-W.Va.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). The proposal, which the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee advanced late last month, would make it easier and cheaper to launch clean energy projects and connect them the grid, essential steps toward a transition away from fossil fuels. Importantly, it could actually pass.

Instead of leaping at a good deal and firing up their lobbyists to support the bill, climate activists are trying to kill it. Why? Because it contains modest wins for the carbon-based fuel industry, such as making it easier to export natural gas and requiring the government to hold more frequent lease sales for fossil-fuel projects on federal lands. These provisions make the bill a “dirty deal,” many environmentalists say.

No doubt, “winning” the fight against climate change in the long run does require phasing out fossil fuels. But the path to a clean energy transition is not as simple as flipping a switch.

Practically, Democrats need Republican votes to get anything done. Like it or not, building out renewable energy with the speed needed to avert the worst of global warming will take compromise. Unfortunately, that word does not feature prominently in many environmentalists’ vocabulary.

There are Democrats in Congress who see the bigger picture. Most Democrats on the committee supported the bill. And for good reason: Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said during a committee hearing that enhanced transmission could reduce carbon emissions by up to 3 billion metric tons through 2050. (A spokesperson for his office explained this was based on a preliminary federal analysis of transmission reforms that hasn’t been made public.) Given that total U.S. carbon emissions are around 6 billion metric tons in a year, transmission reforms should offset emissions from the bill’s provisions boosting fossil fuels, though no rigorous analysis of the bill’s overall impact has been completed.

Many activists, however, have no patience for carefully examining trade-offs, so they quickly trashed the legislation as a “fossil fuel wolf in clean energy clothing,” a “wish list for the fossil fuel industry” and an attempt to carry out the agenda of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. With such fervent opposition on the left, the chances that the bill goes anywhere past Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s desk are slim, especially in an election year.

What too many well-meaning activists don’t seem to understand – or don’t want to admit – is that the clean energy industry is nowhere near ready to replace fossil fuels, which make up 60 percent of all electricity production in the United States. Even if the country were prepared politically to start turning off its carbon spigot, it simply could not do so without generating an energy crisis.

But what lawmakers can – and must – do now is prepare the country to wean itself off its carbon dependency. While the Biden administration has dedicated billions of dollars to begin that transformation, permitting barriers and legal challenges to local projects are holding it back. Tearing down those hurdles could make the difference between attaining a clean energy economy within years or within decades.

Are compromises that boost fossil fuel projects really a good bargain to achieve that? In this case, yes. What reformers need to keep in mind is that supply and demand are the key forces governing energy production. So long as there is demand for fossil fuels, it doesn’t really matter in terms of global carbon emissions whether the United States approves leases to procure oil and gas from federal lands. If U.S. producers don’t meet that demand, competitors elsewhere will.

Similarly, if the United States doesn’t allow domestic natural gas producers to export their products abroad, foreign consumers will look elsewhere for their energy needs. If Europeans, for example, can’t buy natural gas from the United States, they might have to turn to dirtier sources such as coal or natural gas from countries with poorer standards on methane leaks.

Too many climate activists fail to remember these basic economic realities. Often, they fight climate change on a project-by-project basis – opposing a pipeline here or a drilling project there. But the only way to reform energy markets is to think on a broader scale. The question should not just be how to stop fossil fuels from being produced but how to create a sustainable market for cheap, clean and reliable substitutes that consumers can turn to instead.

This is what makes the Manchin-Barrasso compromise so compelling. It is a serious proposal to unlock clean energy quickly that, if lawmakers are allowed to vote on it, might have a real chance of becoming law. If only those who care most passionately about protecting the planet would get on board.