A✌️450-word✌️2.5-minute✌️read
The climate movement’s number one priority must be to achieve bipartisanship. If it can’t, the effort is doomed to fail.
Some may believe the priority should be on electing sympathetic leaders.
Good luck.
Remember the chatter about the absence of the words environment and climate during the last election? The reason is obvious: elections are won on issues of immediacy - inflation, the economy, jobs… not on issues that impact voters decades from now.
Simply put: climate change isn’t a winning election issue. And it’s unlikely to be a factor until it’s too late.
As I’ve said before, positioning climate change as a crisis was a tactical mistake. Not that it isn’t legitimately a crisis, just that human nature doesn’t perceive anything as a crisis until it’s on their doorstep. Climate change won’t fit that description for many more years.
What has President Trump’s election demonstrated?
That it’s impossible to chart a path to net-zero, or more importantly, a national energy strategy without bipartisan support.
Many are focused on the damage being done to renewables, or the rollback of environmental standards. But these only represent the half of the equation primarily related to reducing global emissions.
Yet there is another half that the bifurcation caused by partisanship that may do more short-term damage. That’s ensuring that the country can meet its overall demand for energy.
AI and data centers highlight the predicament we face. As hyperscalers scurry to secure power, the chatter is whether that power will come from renewables, natural gas, or even nuclear.
In the short term the answer is none of the above.
The Trump administration is placing major roadblocks on building new renewable projects. Natural gas plants can’t pick up the slack because the backlog for gas turbines is now measured in years. And even if small nuclear reactors prove viable, they are five to 10 years away.
Why do we find ourselves in this position: partisanship.
When the Democrats controlled Washington, new fossil-fuel based power generation was impossible to finance. The message to investors: renewables are the future.
In an industry that requires decades of visibility to justify massive capital investment, that meant it was too risky to build anything but renewable projects.
Today, President Trump fosters the exact opposite view.
The problem is that the energy industry is incapable of shifting on a dime. Consequently, we are in jeopardy of being unable to build enough of any type of generation, and the reason is that climate unnecessarily became partisan.
Plotting a successful energy strategy - and a path to net-zero - absolutely requires long-term continuity. And there is only one way to achieve continuity: bipartisanship.
#renewables #fossilfuels #bipartisanship #climatechange