Decarbonizing the U.S. economy

Decarbonizing the US Economy: Pathways Toward a Green New Deal. MARK PAUL , ANDERS FREMSTAD , J.W. MASON. Roosevelt Institute. Jun 11 2019.


The greatest challenge of the 21st century—the climate crisis—is here: The global community has just 11 years to cut emissions by 45 percent and must achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 to prevent temperatures from rising more than 1.5C, according to climate scientists. 

In Decarbonizing the US Economy: Pathways Toward a Green New Deal, Roosevelt Fellows Mark Paul and J.W. Mason and assistant professor of economics at Colorado State University Anders Fremstad argue that a rapid decarbonization program is not only possible, but that it will create jobs, improve economic growth, and promote equity. Such an endeavor, however, necessitates immediate action and a broad range of policy tools. They outline the three pillars of such an approach: 1) carbon pricing that ensures that we meet our emissions goals in an equitable way; 2) comprehensive regulations to promote decarbonization across the board; and 3) large-scale public investments. The authors also explore how to pay for a Green New Deal, outlining the macroeconomic reasons why more public spending is a pro-growth proposal.

For nearly 50 years, flawed economic assumptions have guided American politics and policymaking, ultimately stunting action on this issue. Economists and policymakers argued that disrupting markets through environmental regulation or carbon taxes would cost too much in terms of economic growth; that government spending to decarbonize the economy would bankrupt our country; and that public investment would be ineffective and wasteful. Combatting climate change in the US and decarbonizing the economy will require a comprehensive social transformation, which includes dismantling the markets-first approach that has dominated policy decisions for nearly half of a century.

We believe that the public sector must play the leading role in directing decarbonization and in a broader Green New Deal movement. Though markets have many virtues, markets alone are not a suitable tool for the rapid, society-wide reorganization of production that this moment requires. The Green New Deal has initiated a critical discussion on mass mobilization that is capable of redefining and improving the planet, the economy, and people’s lives. And it offers the American people a chance to reclaim our collective power and reshape our society into one that is more just and equitable—one that is more focused on human flourishing and less on private profit. We should not let this chance go to waste.

Read more in our summary document, the “Realities of Climate Change” issue brief, “The Macroeconomic Case For the Green New Deal” brief, and our five policy briefs on eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, implementing a carbon cap-and-dividend program, directing credit to green businesses, building a high-capacity national grid, and paying farmers to capture carbon.




See also:


The Green New Deal: A Ten-Year Window to Reshape International Economic Law. TODD TUCKER. Roosevelt Institure. July 30, 2019.

To address the existential threat of climate change, the international community must come together and rewrite the rules. In a new working paper, Roosevelt Fellow Todd Tucker argues that a global Green New Deal—in tandem with a domestic Green New Deal—can both remake an international trade infrastructure in crisis and decarbonize the global economy in a socially sustainable and equitable way.

Topic: Green New Deal

ONLY A GREEN NEW DEAL CAN DOUSE THE FIRES OF ECO-FASCISM. Naomi Klein, The Intercept. September 16 2019.


The Green New Deal: A Fight for Our Lives. Naomi Klein, New York Review of Books. Sept. 17, 2019.


Only a Global Green New Deal Can Save the Planet. And Bernie Sanders has a plan for that. Tom Athanasiou, The Nation. Sept. 17, 2019

But the true genius of Sanders’s Green New Deal—its secret weapon for achieving the massive emissions cuts he promises—has gone unnoticed by mainstream news organizations and even most climate activists. He clearly recognizes that eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, as some climate activists have demanded, is all but impossible in an economy as enormous and energy intensive as the United States’—at least without paralyzing transportation systems, endangering food supplies, and otherwise triggering a social backlash. But rather than just endorse the 2030 deadline anyway, as some activists insist, or pretend that the science is negotiable, as most politicians do, Sanders has found a credible way around the dilemma. 

... 

What makes the Sanders plan special is that he accepts the hard scientific truth that steep emissions cuts are essential but he makes such cuts feasible by refusing to limit his vision on how to achieve them. Rather, he adds another hard truth: If humanity is to stabilize the global climate system, rich nations must do their fair share by going beyond domestic action and providing support for emissions reductions in poorer countries. Sanders is the first major American political figure to face the reality and scale of this necessity.

The Hope of the Green New Deal. Roger Blanchard, Resilience. Sept. 25, 2019.

One individual who is more realistic about what needs to be done – but will not be done – to reduce CO2 emissions is the prominent climate scientist Kevin Anderson. Approximately 6 years ago he stated that the world had to reduce CO2 emissions by 10%/year starting immediately to prevent a worst-case scenario in terms of warming. He was very likely right about that, but at the time I stated the world would not do what he said needed to be done.  As it has turned out, CO2 emissions have increased since then not decreased.

Kevin is now stating that we have to fundamentally change the way we live.  Specifically we need to get away from a materialist lifestyle.  The problem is that in the U.S., and much of the world now, we have a hedonic lifestyle which most Americans worship.  Thus, we have lots of magical thinking when it comes to addressing the global warming issue and we prefer to kick the can down the road and test the worst-case scenario.

To be clear, those who deny the conclusions of climate science are partaking in magical thinking because the science is overwhelming.  As well, those who believe that renewables will largely or wholly replace fossil fuels are partaking in magical thinking because it’s based upon nothing more than naïve optimism.  The fundamental problem we face is that there are too many people consuming too much fossil fuels and producing too much CO2.  Either we will correct the problem or nature will correct the problem.

A Serious Green New Deal Would Take Up One-Third of the Economy—Are We Ready for That? Yves Smith, nakedcapitalism. Feb. 2, 2019.

I have to confess to being not keen about various Green New Deal proposals. They feed the idea that we can largely preserve our lifestyles and still make a big enough reduction in greenhouse gas output soon enough to ward off catastrophic outcomes. 

There are in my mind, three fallacies here:

1. The fastest and most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas output is radical conservation. The urgency of the challenge means this approach needs to be top of the list. Every year more of status quo or not much different is more greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere. No one is proposing that we even take measures of the sort imposed in the oil crisis, like lowering speed limits and requiring businesses to set their thermostats to 67 in the winter and 77 in the summer. If we were serious, we’d have to be willing to bankrupt the airlines by forcing 90% reductions in flight levels and outlaw private jets.

2. Building green infrastructure has an energy cost, and those costs are seldom incorporated (like the greenhouse gas cost of mining and delivering materials for production of various inputs). They are also not factoring in that some of the materials that are important in current “green” technologies don’t exist in sufficient quantity to satisfy anticipated needs (Jack Lifton has written extensively about lithium). And some materials are costly in environmental terms. See, for example: 

Critical minerals scarcity could threaten renewable energy future. Stanford

We may face a huge shortage of essential raw materials stiffling green energy if governments don’t step up their game ZME Science

 3. While Green New Deal approaches would be valuable in conjunction with radical conservation, they aren’t sufficient on their own, if nothing else because they will take too long to be implemented when time is of the essence. And they have a tendency to perpetuate the idea that there will be no or little sacrifice needed in cutting carbon output levels.

People accepted rationing and other forms of sacrifice at times of war. I’d take the Green New Deal people a lot more seriously if they firmly opposed US military activity as a source of greenhouse gases and also opposed non-essential, energy costly technology planned obsolescence schemes like 5G.

let's declare war on climate change:  “What You Need To Know About The $22 Trillion National Debt”: The Alternative SHORT Interview. Eric Tymoigne. Feb. 17, 2019.


Jobs, the Environment, and a Planet in Crisis. Unions vs. Environmentalists or Unions and Environmentalists?  Aviva Chomsky, via TomDispatch. Aug. 6, 2019.

When it comes to heat, extreme weather, wildfires, and melting glaciers, the planet is now in what the media increasingly refers to as “record” territory, as climate change’s momentum outpaces predictions. In such a situation, in a country whose president and administration seem hell-bent on doing everything they conceivably can to make matters worse, the Green New Deal (GND) seems to offer at least a modest opening to a path forward.

You know, the resolution introduced this February in the House of Representatives by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Edward Markey (D-MA). Unsurprisingly, the proposal has been roundly attacked by the right. But it’s stirred up some controversy on the left as well. You might imagine that labor unions and environmental organizations would be wholeheartedly for a massive federal investment in good jobs and a just transition away from fossil fuels. But does organized labor actually support or oppose the Green New Deal? What about environmental organizations? If you’re not even sure how to answer such questions, you’re not alone.

That 14-page resolution calls for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era.” Its purpose: to reduce U.S. carbon emissions to net zero within a decade, while guaranteeing significant numbers of new jobs and social welfare to American workers. Read it and you’ll find that it actually attempts to overcome historical divisions between the American labor and environmental movements by linking a call for good jobs and worker protection to obvious and much-needed environmental goals.

In the process, the GND proposal goes impressively far beyond the modest goals of the Paris Climate Accords and other international agreements. It supports specific, enforceable targets for bringing climate change under control, while drawing clear connections between social, labor, and environmental rights. Acknowledging in blunt terms the urgency of making systemic change on a rapidly warming planet, it calls for the kind of national mobilization Americans haven’t experienced since the end of the Second World War. Described that way, it sounds like something both the labor and environmental movements would naturally support without a second thought. There is, however, both a history of mistrust and real disagreement over issues, which both movements are now grappling with. And the media is doing its part by exaggerating labor’s opposition to the proposal, while ignoring what environmental organizations have to say.

One Green New Deal controversy focuses on the future role of fossil fuels in that plan. A number of environmental organizations believe that such energy sources have no place in our future, that they need to stay in the ground, period. They cite climate science and the urgent need to move rapidly and drastically to eliminate carbon emissions as the basis for such a conclusion. As it happens, the Green New Deal avoids directly challenging the fossil-fuel industry. In fact, it doesn’t even use the term “fossil fuels.”

From another perspective, some unions hope that new technologies like carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) will make those fuels more efficient and far cleaner. If the addition of carbon to the atmosphere could be reduced significantly or offset in some fashion, while humanity still burned natural gas, oil, or even coal, they say, jobs in those sectors could be preserved. And the unions have other concerns as well. They tend, for instance, to look skeptically on the GND’s promises of a “just transition” for displaced fossil-fuel workers like coal miners, given the devastation that has fallen on workers and their communities when industries have shut down in the past. They also fear that, without accompanying trade protections, polluting industries will simply export their emissions rather than reduce them.

Being more of a statement of purpose than an elaborated plan, the Green New Deal is short on both detail and answers when it comes to such issues. The actual roadmap to achieving its goals, the proposal states, “must be developed through transparent and inclusive consultation, collaboration, and partnership with frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academia, and businesses.” Both unions and environmental organizations are already mobilizing to make sure their voices are part of the process.

The right wing was quick to mockingly publicize the Green New Deal not just as thoroughly unrealistic but as utterly un-American. ...

yup, because what's truly American is all that's wrong with our unsustainable civilization.

Is There An Upper Limit On Human Self-Deceptive Bullshit? Dave Cohen, Deline of the Empire. Feb. 7, 2019.

So, even a non-binding resolution expressing humanity's positive but delusional hopes and fantasies is unlikely to make it through the U.S. Congress.

Climate Links: Sept 2019

World 'gravely' unprepared for effects of climate crisis – report. Damian Carrington, Guardian. Sept. 10, 2019.

Trillions of dollars needed to avoid ‘climate apartheid’ but this is less than cost of inaction

Join the Global Call to #AdaptOurWorld. Global Commission on Adaptation.
Climate change is upon us and its impacts are getting more severe. We must adapt. 

World leaders from the Global Commission on Adaptation are calling on governments, businesses and local community leaders to take urgent action to advance climate adaptation solutions.

ONLY A GREEN NEW DEAL CAN DOUSE THE FIRES OF ECO-FASCISM. Naomi Klein, The Intercept. September 16 2019.


Only a Global Green New Deal Can Save the Planet. And Bernie Sanders has a plan for that. Tom Athanasiou, The Nation. Sept. 17, 2019

But the true genius of Sanders’s Green New Deal—its secret weapon for achieving the massive emissions cuts he promises—has gone unnoticed by mainstream news organizations and even most climate activists. He clearly recognizes that eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, as some climate activists have demanded, is all but impossible in an economy as enormous and energy intensive as the United States’—at least without paralyzing transportation systems, endangering food supplies, and otherwise triggering a social backlash. But rather than just endorse the 2030 deadline anyway, as some activists insist, or pretend that the science is negotiable, as most politicians do, Sanders has found a credible way around the dilemma. 

... 

What makes the Sanders plan special is that he accepts the hard scientific truth that steep emissions cuts are essential but he makes such cuts feasible by refusing to limit his vision on how to achieve them. Rather, he adds another hard truth: If humanity is to stabilize the global climate system, rich nations must do their fair share by going beyond domestic action and providing support for emissions reductions in poorer countries. Sanders is the first major American political figure to face the reality and scale of this necessity.

The Prospect of an Elizabeth Warren Nomination Should Be Very Worrying. Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs. Sept. 23, 2019.
The differences between Warren and Sanders are critically important…

... Let’s just forget Bernie, a relic of 2016, and all settle on Warren. 

Why, then, does the prospect of a Warren nomination make me deeply worried? What is it that makes me instinctively feel it would be a very bad idea? Why does it feel to me like there’s something so wrong about the “airtight argument” that’s difficult to articulate?  

...  

Personally, I feel that the difference between Sanders and Warren is gigantic, and that it could have substantial consequences for the future of the world. 

... 

But I think I know what I’m fearing. I fear this is going to be Obama all over again. 

...  

Perhaps I would feel less troubled if I really felt like I could trust Elizabeth Warren. 

...  

She has done so many things that make me suspect she won’t follow through on her radical rhetoric, or will shift to the center in a general election, or won’t be willing to fight as hard as necessary.

What If We Stopped Pretending?  Jonathan Franzen, The New Yorker. September 8, 2019.

The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.

Don’t bet on the UN to fix climate change – it’s failed for 30 years. Marc Hudson, The Conversation. September 20, 2019.

... amid the hype, it’s worth putting this UN summit in context against the history of 30 years of such international meetings. Is it a vain hope for 197 countries to agree on any meaningful climate action at all, especially when it involves so much money and power? 

Scientists knew from the late 1950s that carbon dioxide was building up and that this could be a problem. By the late 1970s, they knew it would be – it was just a question of when. By 1985, at a workshop of scientists in Villach, Austria, the answer became “sooner than we thought”.

Money Is the Oxygen on Which the Fire of Global Warming Burns. Bill McKibben, The New Yorker. Sept. 17, 2019.

What if the banking, asset-management, and insurance industries moved away from fossil fuels?

Amazon Employees Are Walking Out Over the Company's Huge Carbon Footprint. Lauren Kaori Gurley, vice. Sep 9, 2019.

Nearly 1,000 employees have pledged to walk out September 20 to demand the company go to zero emissions by 2030.

What It’s Like Living in One of the Hottest Cities on Earth—Where It May Soon Be Uninhabitable. Aryn Baker, TIME. September 12, 2019.


World 'losing battle against deforestation'. Mark Kinver, BBC. Sept. 12, 2019.


Climate change: Electrical industry's 'dirty secret' boosts warming. Matt McGrath, BBC. Sep. 13, 2019.


WAR ON THE WORLD. Industrialized Militaries Are a Bigger Part of the Climate Emergency Than You Know. Muraza Hussain, The Intercept. Sept. 15, 2019.


Meat is Murder. But you know that already. Mark Bittman, NYT. Sep. 17  2019.

Book review of:
WE ARE THE WEATHER
Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast
By Jonathan Safran Foer




Documentary “Blowout” Follows Climate Cost of Oil Boom from Fracking to Exports. Jerri-Lynn Scofield, nakedcapitalism. Sep. 22, 2019.

Timely reminder that Trump didn’t create the climate crisis – although he’s certainly making it worse. As the RNN touts this interview, “ [t]he new film follows the U.S. oil supply chain, covering health, climate and environmental justice impacts. And it points to the president who was central to creating the current reality: Barack Obama.”

And They Made a Desert: 80 to 90% Drop in Nutrients in Food. Ian Welsh. Sept. 17, 2019.

The Industrial Era has been the Era of Locusts. We think we’re rich, but most of what has been happening is that we’re consuming resources far faster than they can be replaced. Meanwhile, we’re poisoning ourselves and the earth; shattering ecosystems which we do not know how to repair (or even understand), and altering Earth’s climate cycle ... 

This is crazed behaviour. This is the behaviour of children who have no self-control at all. Even when we know what we are doing is destructive, we keep doing it..

The super-optimists are fools. Yes, it is possible we’ll get out of this, but it’s not possible if we keep telling ourselves that the hole we’ve dug is no big deal.

Divining Comedy. Wen Stephenson, The Baffler. Sept. 5, 2019.

Amitav Ghosh’s new novel is set amid climate disaster—yet it steers toward the mythic and the comic

Amitav Ghosh: I must say, when I started writing Gun Island, it did sometimes seem to me that it was unwise to create a challenge of that kind for myself. I can’t say that it cramped me or worried me in any way, but as you know very well, once one starts thinking about this climate stuff, it just permeates everything; you can’t get away from it. It’s just so completely all around you.

...

AG: You see, one of the things which is so problematic about the world, which is again unraveling, is this idea of time as a progression. You know, that time is always taking you toward, as Obama used to say, “the right side of history.” Whereas anyone who looks at the climate stuff knows that, no, that’s the one thing that you can’t say. And so what do you substitute for that? It has to be some sort of cyclical idea of time, and disaster, catastrophe. That’s a part of it, if you like.

...

AG: I think one very important aspect of it would be simply to acknowledge how wrong we’ve been about everything. Just that. That we acknowledge that the dominant ideas and culture of our time have been wrong about everything.

WS: Everything?

AG: Almost everything, I would say.

...

AG: Until just last year, I’d say, 2018. But even now you have prominent Democrats saying this can’t be the main issue. It can be recognized as an issue, but there are bigger issues.

WS: Right. And yet, when one really comes to grips with the climate science, one realizes that to be serious about climate is to be radical.

AG: That’s right.

WS: In fact, even revolutionary. But until very recently, the left has been almost completely absent on climate change. It’s almost as though the implications of climate science are too radical, even for radicals. What do you make of that?

AG: I think it’s very important. It’s absolutely true that the left—and you’re talking about the American left, but I can tell you that in India, the left never even took local environmental questions seriously. Even after the Bhopal tragedy.

WS: But I feel like we have to ask ourselves, do any of us really take climate politics seriously? It’s easy for me to say, so-and-so isn’t serious because they’re not radical enough. But am I radical enough? I mean, our survival is at stake. A rational response would be a truly revolutionary politics, when we consider what is actually happening, and the amount of time we have to deal with it.

...

AG: I must say, I find Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion incredibly invigorating.

WS: And yet they’re only an extension of the kind of activism we’ve already seen. It’s not truly radical. It’s not revolutionary.

AG: Let me just say, I feel a lot of sympathy, especially for the people you wrote about in your book, and these young activists, my heart goes out to them. But you know, the thing that I can’t forget, because of the part of the world that I’m from, and that I think a lot of people involved in this often forget, is that this is not in the hands of the West anymore. This is going to be decided in Asia, and Africa.

WS: Absolutely. Although, if the United States and Europe were to embark on a crash program to decarbonize their economies by 2050, that would have some effect on the trajectory that China and India take.

AG: It would. But look, America’s addiction to fossil fuel energy isn’t just technological. It’s strategic. It’s through energy that America controls global strategy. If renewables could be adopted at scale, the whole strategic calculus of the world would be completely upended.

WS: Again, it’s unthinkable, right? But revolution is very often unthinkable to those in the historical moment in which it occurs. There are people right now who are absolutely certain that there’s nothing to be done, that it’s over, that all is lost, that we’re doomed. But, actually, there’s a lot of uncertainty still. We don’t know the future. We don’t know what is still possible. The human element, the political and social part, is highly uncertain. We actually don’t know.

AG: Absolutely. We don’t know.

WS: And how one responds to that uncertainty is everything.

AG: That’s right. It’s how bad it will be. This is what it’s about

Topic: Green New Deal

How Are We Doing on a Green New Deal? Yves Smith, naked capitalism. Oct. 8, 2018.

Yves here. I know grand-sounding ideas like a Green New Deal are made with the best of intention, but reading this post confirms my view that our collective goose is cooked. A big push towards green energy 30 years ago could have made a big difference, but we need more radical, faster impact measures now. Emphasis on green energy diverts attention from the fact that individuals and businesses need to cut their energy use in a big way, now. The article does mention ideas for cutting some big energy uses, like beef and single use plastics but is hesitant about restrictions. I see no proposals for cutting air transportation. And don’t get me started on the misguided concern about hyperinflation.  

By contrast, during the oil shock, people did way more in the way of energy conservation than I see now. Office buildings turned their summer temperatures to 77 degrees. The every-other-day gas system (and long lines at pumps) led to a lot more car pooling. Do we see anyone now sharing rides or trying to cut back on car use? Instead we have Uberization, which means more cars running around with one person in them. 

The article also fails to mention issues NC readers often raise, first, that these green technologies often use scarce or nasty inputs, like rare earths, so they have high non-carbon environmental costs. Second, the greenhouse gas cost of creating green infrastructure is seldom factored into the equation. It takes lots of moving of stuff, which these days entails using fossil fuels. 

Of course, one thing that would cut government energy expenditure meaningfully, a major downsizing of the US military, is guaranteed not to happen.

How are we doing on a Green New Deal? Edward Robinson, openDemocracy. Oct. 7, 2018.


The Green New Deal: How We Will Pay For It Isn't 'A Thing' - And Inflation Isn't Either. Robert Hockett, Forbes. Jan. 16, 2019.