Climate Politics in the NYT
2024 11 06
David Gelles in today’s NYT urges “Understanding the Climate Stakes” of the election, but unfortunately himself does not understand the issues very well.[1] He is correct that on balance Trump is worse than Harris reducing CO2 emissions at least cost, but the following summary is inadequate to demonstrate this:
“If Donald Trump retakes the White House, he is likely to roll back regulations aimed at limiting planet-warming emissions, expand fossil fuel production and eliminate federal incentives for clean energy and electric vehicles. Those decisions could usher in a new boom in oil and gas production that could lock in years of additional emissions.”
If Trump rolled back only those regulations that do not mimic the effects of a tax on net emissions – and there are some – that would be a net positive, freeing resources to reduce more emissions elsewhere. That Trump plans anything of the sort is fanciful, of course, but it is good to be clear about where the error lies.
The situation is similar with respect to elimination of “federal incentives for clean energy and electric vehicles.” Some of those measures encourage the production of zero CO2 energy or reduce the emissions of CO2 at high cost, higher than woud be the effect of taxing net emissions. Eliminating only the high-cost measures would be an efficiency gain.
But, again, it is extremely unlikely that Trump will merely reduce incentives so as to make them better mimic a net emissions tax. Some he will surely eliminate entirely but others -- IRA subsidies to investments going to Red states (many of which are in fact being executed by legacy fossil fuel producing firms) -- will probably be left untouched. I expect diametrically wrong policies here, eliminating many of the right incentives and retaining the wrong ones.
On the other hand, it's not likely that Trump policies would allow much expansion of fossil fuel production because the Biden Administration has not much restricted these projects. Trump may indeed remove some obstacles to transportation projects like the export of natural gas, but this would not be an error. Restricting production and transportation of fossil fuels in the United States does little to reduce CO2 emissions. It can marginally raise the price of fossil fuels which reduces their worldwide use only a smidgen because the same higher price just means that the fossil fuels will be produced and transported elsewhere.
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/why-not-lng-exports
But for good or ill, the scope increasing production is not large. Biden Harris didn’t leave that many restrictions to lift.
The sum total of these policies, therefore, is not likely to “usher in a new boom in oil and gas production that could lock in years of additional emissions.” First because, as argued above, not that much more oil and gas will be produced and second because _use_ of fossil fuels, not their _production_ “locks in” emissions. To reduce emissions we – the world – need to reduce the demand for CO2-emiting fossil fuels, not try to thwart productions site by site and project by project.
US policies to efficiently reduce its CO2 emissions is a disorderly garden in serious need of weeding. Trump plans to just plough it under with the exception of some large and politically well protected weeds.
Internationally:
Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord during his first term in office and has said he would do so again, abandoning the country’s commitment to lower emissions.
This was and would be a mistake. The Paris Accords, the whole COP structure is in great need of reform and no one besides the US is likely lead. It is important refocus COP commitments away from achieving arbitrary quantitative goals of CO2 reductions, arbitrarily distributed among countries, and toward commitment to policies that will, in the aggregate, result in zero net CO2 emissions. This means that polices to reduce net CO2 emissions in each country need to be as least cost as possible: taxation of net emissions of CO2 by its residents or other incentives that mimic the effects of a tax. So far, this aspect of the international agenda has gotten little attention from those most interested in reducing the harm from future climate change.
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/why-not-lng-exports
Image: pretty garden with growing vegetables but also large ugly weeds
[Standard bleg: Although my style is know-it-all-ism, I do sometime entertain the thought that, here and there, I might be mistaken on some minor detail. I would welcome comments on these views.]
[1] And this s not the first time:
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/climate-snark-from-the-nyt
I could change some of the verb forms but the disappointing election results change nothing about the analysis. What was good and bad policy for reducing net CO2 emissions on Nov 5 remains good and bad policy on Nov 6. What Trump should do is the same as what Harris should have done.