Last Earth Day, President Joe Biden pledged that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. It was a welcome declaration, albeit only a first step toward what is required to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.
As this year’s Earth Day approaches, Biden’s Build Back Better bill — which could have gone at least partway toward meeting that goal — is stalled in Congress. Worse, the war in Ukraine and inflation in the U.S. have made cutting emissions politically less palatable now. The knee-jerk reaction of political leaders to produce more oil and gas to bring down energy prices was perhaps predictable, but it will only aggravate the problem of steadily increasing emissions. Expanding drilling and fracking does nothing to address short-term energy needs; rather, it further locks the economy into long-term reliance on fossil fuels.
A far better approach to stopping autocrats such as Russian President Vladimir Putin from waging wars financed by fossil fuels — while bolstering this country’s national security and reinforcing its energy independence — would be to accelerate the transition to clean, domestic energy.
