America has gambled that human ingenuity, rather than painful measures such as carbon taxes, will rescue the planet from climate change. Yet Luddite American politicians are crushing the clean-energy technologies that could save us.
This month alone, high-profile members of both parties – including President Biden – have taken steps to sabotage innovations that would reduce the carbon footprint of some of the biggest sources of emission: agriculture, power utilities and cars.
Let’s start with Republicans, who have largely turned a blind eye to the costs of droughts, wildfires, floods, hurricanes and other climate-related disasters. Even those who acknowledge such costs often suggest no government intervention is necessary. Profit-seeking entrepreneurs will simply invent our way out of this mess, as they have for other seemingly intractable problems, they say.
To be fair, the pace of clean-energy innovation has been remarkable. Solar power, for instance, got cheaper much faster than almost anyone predicted. Rapid cost declines are largely a credit to investments that other countries, such as China, made in scaling up production. But now that U.S. companies work to develop their own miraculous, blockbuster technologies that would both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and potentially make gazillions of dollars, GOP politicians have tried to kill the golden goose.
Or chicken or cow, as it were.
In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) last week signed a law banning the manufacture, sale or distribution of food produced from cultured animal meats. This follows a similar law signed days earlier in Florida. Other red states are considering copycat legislation, too.
The lab-cultured meat industry aims to produce real meats such as chicken or steak (not plant-based substitutes, such as tofu or Beyond Meat) in labs from existing animal cells. If successful, these products could be a game changer. They could reduce animal slaughter and greenhouse gas emissions. About 12% of all anthropogenic emissions worldwide come from livestock agrifood systems, the United Nations estimates, because of things such as feed production, manure management and cow burps.
To be clear, lab-cultivated meat is nowhere close to commercial viability; current prototypes are expensive and not available in supermarkets. But lots of companies are trying to get the technology and economics to work out, and everyone should be rooting for them to succeed.
Alas, culture wars beckon. So do GOP lobbyists and political donors from the traditional meat industry, which worries about threats to its cash cows, so to speak.
Also, this week, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump promised to halt offshore wind projects on Day 1 of his presidency, even as the technology has grown more efficient. Trump says he’s worried about birds and whales, but his windmill-tilting began because he didn’t want turbines ruining his ocean views. And it’s not just Trump. Progressive groups have waged NIMBYist wars against building clean-energy infrastructure and supply-chain projects, too.
Most recently, the Democratic standard-bearer has also traded off climate goals for political expedience: On Tuesday, Biden slapped steep new tariffs on solar cells, electric vehicles and advanced batteries, among other Chinese goods.
If climate change is an existential crisis, as Biden often says, why do anything to make these technologies more expensive and slow their adoption? Biden aides have failed to provide a consistent or straight answer.
Rather than arguing that any cost to the climate is worth whatever jobs or security concerns they apparently value more, they usually deny tariffs will raise prices at all. There are no trade-offs! U.S. Trade Ambassador Katherine Tai, for instance, told reporters this week that the link between tariffs and prices “has been largely debunked.” Perhaps she should consult with her own boss. In the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden correctly explained that Americans were paying for Trump’s tariffs, through higher prices and fewer jobs. Top-notch economists have affirmed this finding in at least five carefully constructed studies.
More recently, Biden and his aides have made similar arguments about Trump’s proposals to jack up tariffs further. Sadly, Biden seems to realize the costliness of tariffs only when other people propose them.
Sometimes Biden aides argue that these tariffs will help build out the U.S. clean-energy sector, somehow leading to lower prices in several decades. Even if that’s true – I’m skeptical – we need consumers to switch to EVs and clean power now, not in 2050. The more honest explanation is that Biden believes these tariffs will appease swing-state constituencies, whom he needs this November.
There’s an old parable about a man caught in a flood. He first turns down a canoe, then a motorboat and finally a helicopter that come to rescue him, saying God will save him instead. As the waters rise, he asks why God has forsaken him. To which God answers: “What did you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter.”
The planet’s rescue vessels are being constructed right now. Will we turn them away?
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Reach Catherine Rampell at crampell@washpost.com.
