There Is No Middle Ground on Climate Action
Joe Biden came out with his first big statement on climate today, saying that he’ll be aiming for more of a “middle ground” approach on climate. In a piece in Reuters, an unnamed advisor to the candidate said that Biden’s climate policy “could also be supportive of nuclear energy and fossil fuel options like natural gas and carbon capture technology, which limit emissions from coal plants and other industrial facilities.”
It sounds a whole lot like the ads you’ve no doubt been hearing and seeing all over the media, touting carbon capture and natural gas as pathways out of the climate apocalypse. It is fossil fuel-funded propaganda and nothing like a solution.
Heather Zichal, part of the team advising Biden on climate change, has a long history of pushing for this sort of moderation on climate. In the Reuters article, she was quoted as saying: “Right now, we need a little bit more reality around this dialogue.”
Within hours of its publication she was tweeting that the story got it all wrong and that of course Biden will be bold on climate. I find no reason to believe that in either Biden’s or Zichal’s records. Biden helped the Obama Administration kick off an oil & gas boom. Zichal was also part of that approach to climate change, before she went on to take a lucrative board seat with a liquefied natural gas (LNG) company, Cheniere Energy. According to investigative reporter Nick Surgey, Zichal earned a total of nearly $1.1 million from compensation and stock while a Cheniere board member from 2014–18. Coincidentally (or not), Cheniere was also the first company to receive an LNG export permit from the Obama administration.
Here’s the deal: The U.S. government has let the fossil fuel industry essentially regulate itself for 30 years. Via extensive, well-funded influence campaigns, the industry has masterfully shifted the conversation on climate, from the way it’s researched at universities to the way it’s covered in the media, all of which have further enabled inaction. Those weren’t just any three decades, they were absolutely critical. They were also the only decades in which moderate action would have been feasible. And guess who was part of the government that entire time? That’s right, Uncle Joe.
Now, they’re trying to remove the last check on their influence: the courts. You’ll notice that in addition to the various “solutions” that enable fossil fuel production to continue as long as possible, oil & gas companies have been vocally supportive of various carbon tax measures. Why? Because most of them (maybe all?) include a liability waiver that removes the option of suing fossil fuel companies for their role in both contributing to climate change and creating climate denial. The only other industries with such waivers are guns and nuclear.
No climate policy that allows the fossil fuel industry to continue to have influence (whether it’s via campaign contributions or regular meetings) has a chance at delivering the sort of radical transformation required to stave off the worst effects of climate change. And let me be clear: Most of those pushing for radical change are not, by nature, radicals. They have been radicalized by the absolute failure of industry and government to act responsibly. If anything I would say that the corporate capture of academia, media, and government by the fossil fuel industry (in which I include not just oil & gas, but also coal and utilities) is one of the most radical things to happen to this country.
You can listen to the full story in bite-sized chunks in season 1 of Drilled:
More than anything what Biden’s take reveals is the urgent need for a climate debate amongst primary contenders. Democratic voters have already indicated that this is the most important issue to them, and so far only three candidates have even announced policy positions on it.
