A Looming Climate Emergency Declaration from America?

President Biden is facing pressure to use Executive power to declare a climate emergency. Did John Podesta recently hint it is coming?

Climate hawks in Congress and within the Biden Administration believe time is running out on saving the world before the climate-induced apocalypse destroys us all. They are frustrated at the lack of progress in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions in light of all the efforts and funding of the climate industry over the last 30-plus years. Fossil fuel use continues to rise globally, despite all their efforts.

Administration supporters are also very concerned with the outlook for the Presidential elections in November. Biden’s poll numbers continue to suffer while Trump sustains his popularity despite all the lawfare attempts to end his political career. Bold political actions are often taken during times like these to invigorate the incumbent voter base and give its re-election campaign a shot in the arm.

The Biden Administration tried to rally its climate-focused voters with limits on the Willow oil project in Alaska in early 2023 and then again with the temporary pause on LNG export authorizations in January 2024, but those positive impacts for climate voters didn’t last long (many of them have been preoccupied with protesting Israel lately). There have been growing rumors circulating about the White House declaring a climate emergency and using the power of the Executive Office of the President to force their energy and climate plans upon the United States. President Biden has withstood the pressure to date, but that could change in the coming weeks.

One clue the tide may be changing is a recent speech by John Podesta on April 16 at Columbia University’s Global Energy Summit.

For those that don’t know who John Podesta is, he is the ultimate D.C. insider. He’s worked in the nation’s capital since the late 1970s. He was President Clinton’s Chief of Staff during his second term after serving in a variety of senior roles in the first term. He has extensive experience working in the U.S. Congress, started a lobbying firm with his brother, and he created the Center for American Progress, a D.C.-based liberal think tank. He also ran the failed Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton (remember the hack of his emails?), and most recently he has been back in the Biden White House executing the President’s seminal climate legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act. To top it off, he recently succeeded John Kerry as the senior U.S. climate official. If you want to get a feel for where American climate policy is headed in the last months of the Biden Administration you should listen to what he says.

So what did he say at Columbia University a couple weeks ago?

Podesta opened his remarks with the usual climate hyperbole we frequently see from the climate apocalypse type (emphasis added):

We’re coming together at a moment when the reality of the climate crisis have never been more clear — and when our ability to address those realities have never been greater.

He continues regurgitating climate fear mongering about the world reaching record temperature highs, ocean temperatures are “shattering” records, and heat waves are killing hundreds of people all around the world. He then drops a line we should all pay attention to (emphasis added):

This isn’t a fluke — this is the climate crisis. And its affecting all corners of the globe.

Podesta did not come out directly and say the President will declare a climate emergency, but he said we are in a climate crisis. These types of policy decisions are often floated to the public to see how it is received and if there is any major blowback. Perhaps this is a messaging trial run in preparation for a Presidential announcement in the coming weeks or months? Time will tell.

Podesta then rattles off all of the great things the Biden Administration has done in this “era of climate action.” I’ll save you the details, but its a lot of nonsense which hasn’t had the intended impact. The primary reason for the reduction in GHG emissions from the United States is the transition from coal-fired power generation to natural gas-fired power generation. The rest (renewables, electric vehicles, heat pumps, hydrogen) essentially is just noise. Very expensive noise.

The next part of his remarks is key.

It is where he lays out the path forward for U.S. climate policy within the context of international trade (he labels it “The Trade Problem”). The fundamental emphasis in this section is on the need for the United States to implement something akin to a carbon border adjustment mechanism that will add in the cost of carbon on all imported goods. Emphasis added throughout.

We have to take a serious look at our international economic systems, including trade — and harness them for climate action. Our current global trading system was built to promote open and competitive markets — which it has done well — but it wasn’t built to curb emission. In fact, by many measures, global trade is a huge contributor to the climate problem. Emissions from shipping and aviation are a major factor…traded goods account for about twenty-five percent of all global emissions.

When any senior American official talks about the need to take a serious look at our international economic systems, people should stop and listen to what is said next.

There is a lot of criticism (rightfully so) about secrecy and lack of transparency within the United States government, but quite often they do clearly state, in public forums, their strategic aims and policies. So, what does he say next?

Right now, our existing trade policies and the international rules that govern them don’t pay enough attention to the emissions embodied in tradeable goods…Global trading rules incentivize carbon leakage — when manufacturing-related emissions from a country with stronger climate policies shift to a country with weaker policies.

This is a clear acknowledgement the Biden Administration (and Congress) is seriously considering instituting — or at least trying to institute — a carbon border adjustment mechanism similar to the European Union’s. This mechanism is meant to add in the cost of carbon/GHG emissions to imported goods from countries that produce goods with higher rates of emissions to ensure a level playing field for domestic producers.

What this means for consumers is higher prices for everyone, on nearly everything.

The reason behind this push in the United States is twofold — one, to reduce global GHG emission (assuming it would do that); and two, to increase the cost of goods coming from China and the developing world to level the playing field for more expensive American manufacturing. It would essentially undo the last forty years of global free trade policies executed by both American political parties. This idea has been brewing in Congress for some time and seems to be gaining momentum.

Podesta goes on to reveal the most important takeaway from the speech — the creation of a White House Task Force to deal with the pressing climate and trade challenges. He says (emphasis added):

Today, we are announcing a new White House Climate and Trade Task Force, which will have three focus areas: First, developing our climate and trade policy toolkit…second, the Task Force will focus on ensuring that we have credible, robust, and granular data to implement smart climate and trade policies…and third, the Task Force will identify what more we can do at home and abroad to further position producers to thrive in this new race-to-the-top environment.

The “race-to-the-top” phrase means aiming to produce the “cleanest”, most sustainable goods that will support significant numbers of sustainable domestic jobs. Sounds very expensive and likely to weaken American energy security, which I’ll get to below. Podesta ends his remarks with one last nugget to ponder (emphasis added):

A new global dynamic where cutting emissions isn’t just the right thing to do, its the only thing to do to compete and thrive.

Podesta’s speech is a strong signal the Biden Administration is seriously considering declaring a climate emergency in the run up to the November Presidential election. There were multiple media reports about this possibility during Earth Week (April 17-24). Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the Biden Administration is facing terrible polling data and growing angst from the climate alarmists.

What could a climate declaration actually entail? Let’s see what the card-carrying members of the Church of Carbon (hat tip to

Doomberg

) at The Guardian suggested in July 2023 (emphasis added):

Using executive orders and federal agency rules, and without needing to involve this failure of a Congress, Biden could end new drilling leases on federal lands and waters, block new pipelines and effectively ban fracking. He could unleash a historic education program to counter fossil fuel industry disinformation, using the bully pulpit to build awareness and support. He could prohibit government financing of overseas fossil fuel infrastructure, end energy department fossil-fuel financing programs, ban new fossil-fuel vehicle sales by 2030, prosecute violations by fossil fuel polluters, commit to veto laws granting immunity to such criminals, and more.

Declaring a climate emergency would unleash additional powers such as banning oil exports and further accelerating renewable energy buildout on a scale not seen since the mobilization for the second world war. It would send an unmistakable signal to investors still living in the past, to universities that have been shamefully slow to divest, to media outlets that have failed to connect the dots, to all the dangerously lagging institutions of our society. And it would be a desperately needed win for climate activists.

Wow. This is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve read in quite some time. The economic devastation this would result in would be staggering. I’ve written about the stupidity involved in the push to end fossil fuel use here. The geopolitical impacts would be devastating. But the stupid doesn’t stop just with the call to end fossil fuel use.

Does the author of the above editorial have any idea how clean energy technologies are manufactured? Any idea about supply chains, project finance, permitting and licensing, etc.? I suppose they assume some of these issues will be streamlined with a declared emergency, but the supply chain issue is very difficult to overcome anytime soon.

All one has to do is take a few minutes on the internet searching about supply chains for any clean energy technology and see they are either currently dominated by China or could easily be dominated by them with a concerted effort. The West has been picking up pennies in front of a steamroller driven by the Chinese Communist Party. See below from a recent Bloomberg article for evidence:

We won’t know the full impacts of a climate emergency declaration until the entire scope of policy prescriptions are known.

One can rest assured that whatever the policy prescriptions under a climate emergency declaration, it will not enhance American energy security. It will not result in a clean technology economy. It will not lead to a “race to the top.” It will likely not reduce emissions in any meaningful way. The likely result will be a further contribution to inflationary pressure and increased costs to consumers. It will result in geopolitical upheaval if significant constraints are placed on U.S. oil and gas production and exports. And there will be significant unintended consequences which no one in the Biden Administration will consider.

I can only hope there remains some level of intelligence and analytical rigor in the White House, otherwise we are in for a rough, rough ride for the remainder of this Administration.