I literally just today learned that the “Biden is destroying the climate, we emitted more greenhouse gas than ever before in 2023” talking point isn’t even “not the whole story” – it’s actually the complete opposite of what actually happened.
Not only are we still way below the high we set in 2005, the rate is still steadily going down. Maybe the people saying this mean the world as a whole set a record, and they’re blaming the entire world’s emissions on Biden? I have no idea.
Anyway, this is what actually happened.
Edit: Hang on, I am wrong or partly wrong. The talking-point version is that US set a record for fossil fuel extraction, not emissions, which is completely accurate and also still terrifying. So fair play I guess.
Most of the criticism I’m seeing regarding Biden’s environmental record involves the record amount of fossil fuel extraction that happened under his administration. I suspect that’s also the same criticism OP has seen, but it’s easier to try to replace it with a strawman that can be easily knocked down.
To what extent Biden is responsible for the decrease in coal emissions is unclear, but let’s just give him sole credit for the sake of argument. It’s possible to be happy about the decrease in emissions while still being livid at the record oil extraction.
Yep, a fossil fuel industry whose potential for methane emissions the government has been badly underestimating and which rose in 2023. And instead of holding those companies accountable for any of that, we just decided to hand out a bunch of monetizable and transferable tax credits to renewable energy companies that are being bought by corps like BP, who take the money and just keep on drilling
What’s your take on this?
Here’s an update on how things have been working out in practice. How would you update that 40% figure, in terms of how things have played out in the time since the law was enacted?
What would be your recommendation to do instead, and what would be your estimate of your recommendation’s effect in terms of reduction in US emissions level?
I agree with the ends, but I have my suspicions the ends aren’t going to be as effective as we’ve estimated, because estimating the responses of independent actors to an inducement is really tough even in simple controlled experimental settings, and energy markets are anything but simple. Also, this all just reminds me way too much of when we gave telecom companies subsidies to build out better internet infrastructure in the late 90s and early 00s and they were able to exploit legal loopholes to just take the money without actually building out their networks and serving unserved populations. The companies were dealing with are smart, they’ve been dealing with and exploiting government regulations and institutions for a very long time, and they are masters of having their cake and eating it too when it comes to this stuff.
Moreover, I really think we should not be giving one dime to oil and gas companies under any circumstances, whether its indirectly through these no strings attached tax credits we’re giving to renewable energy companies that are majority owned by traditional energy companies or all the money we’re throwing at carbon capture research that’s probably not going to return meaningfully useful technology in time to matter. With campaign finance and lobbying laws as loose as they are and with these companies’ histories of bankrolling some of the most harmful lawmakers and judges in our nation’s history, we’re basically feeding the monsters we have to fight. Also, it just sends a terrible message to all the other business leaders and corporations of the world if you can literally knowingly destroy the global climate for decades and never face any kind of punishment.
However, the IRA did get passed and those subsidies are out there now, and I think it’s possible they will do some good and that blowing them up now would be really disruptive and damaging to a private clean energy industry that’s currently* our best hope of not completely destroying the environment, so if I could wave a magic wand I would leave everything from the IRA in place and just add a lot more fees and penalties and taxes that targeted the oil and gas industries on top of it. Subsidies of any sort turn my stomach, but I think subsidies plus targeted fees and penalties is our best bet with where we’re at now.
Ultimately, I think we should nationalize all these companies and turn them into public agencies with open records open meetings and elected administrators who hire subject matter experts that guide the administrators’ policy decisions*, but I appreciate that’s a number of steps away from where we are now and I think there will have to be some kind of gradual process to get there.
**This is also what I want to have happen to health insurance, education, housing, and social media (with the stipulation that private market based competition to these public agencies is totally encouraged in situations where it’s practicably possible (e.g. power grids usually require monopolies of certain aspects, but there’s no reason we couldn’t have smaller more specialized private insurance companies in a country with publicly administered single payer universal healthcare))
Good stuff. What is your estimate of the total predicted impact on emissions of Biden’s climate bill, now that we’ve seen it in action for a little bit? And your estimate of the overall impact of what you’re talking about here?
It’s a challenging question I’m sure, but you weighed in on whether Biden’s bill is good or bad and what he should be doing instead, so presumably you claim for yourself enough knowledge to estimate the impacts of these different approaches. Yes?
Well, seems like this legislation has done wonders for the sealion population at least
I made the whole meme and then you edited your comment 😢
Anyway, I’m not surprised you’re more interested in constructing narratives that fit the illusion you’re trying to construct, than in answering basic questions about those narratives to test if they correspond to reality.
I’m not being, like, super friendly, but literally all I’m doing is asking you for details about what you’re claiming is happening.
Oooh
I see, yeah, that’s accurate. I more or less assumed that fuel extracted would equal with fuel burned but that’s not the case.
So yeah while I can give credit for the climate bill and acknowledge that Trump is 10 times worse on this issue and acknowledge that Biden’s one of the forces in government trying to yank the emissions in the correct direction and direct the negativity on the climate at the people who are trying to water down even the not-enough stuff that he’s trying to do, it’s also fair to still be absolutely terrified at what the sum total output of the US government for the last 4 years has been. In particular, those charts of US Energy Administration predictions for what will happen in their perfect scenario look a lot like the end of the world.
There are a couple of intertwined issues. First, sanctions on Russia caused a sharp reduction of the amount of oil they export. The US increased its own exports to mitigate the pain felt by the EU, who had relied on Russian oil.
Second, as discussed above the IRA will drastically reduce emissions by the US. In order to pass the bill, Manchin demanded new drilling permits in the Gulf. They threw him that bone, because even after accounting for new drilling the IRA has an overwhelmingly net beneficial effect on global CO2.