The Great Climate Backslide: Why Countries Are Ditching ‘Green’ Goals

[After COP26 ended] in November, summit chairman Alok Sharma praised the “heroic efforts” by nations showing they can rise above their differences and unite to tackle climate change, an outcome he said, “the world had come to doubt.”

Turns out the world was right to be skeptical.

Three months on, a toxic combination of political intransigence, an energy crisis, and pandemic-driven economic realities has cast doubt on the progress made in Scotland.

If 2021 was marked by optimism that the biggest polluters were finally willing to set ambitious net-zero targets, 2022 already threatens to be the year of global backsliding.

From the U.S. to China, in Europe, India, and Japan, fossil fuels are staging a comeback, clean energy stocks are taking a hammering, and the prospects for speeding the transition to renewable sources of power are looking grim. …snip…

Emissions rose last year when they needed to decline if the world is to stay on track to hit climate goals.

National interest was always going to run up against the kind of painful measures scientists agree are needed to meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels.

But even this early in the year, the headwinds to aggressive climate action are ferocious.

Oil is on a roll as the world economy picks up from its pandemic-induced swoon, nearing $100 a barrel just two years after the price collapsed.

That’s swelling the coffers — and influence — of fossil fuel giants like Saudi Arabia and Russia, while reinvigorating an industry that had been shifting its focus to clean energies.

Exxon Mobil Corp. has just given a vote of confidence in the U.S. shale industry with plans to boost output by 25% this year in the Permian Basin.

And with gas prices hitting records, utilities have been turning to coal instead, despite it producing about twice the carbon, according to Kit Konolige, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Even the U.K. host of COP26 risks regressing, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the ropes and some members of his Conservative Party pushing back against his green agenda.

Little wonder that U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has seemed increasingly glum, repeatedly warning that the world is falling behind.

“We’re in trouble,” Kerry said during a Chamber of Commerce event last month. “We’re not on a good track.”

For many, the highlight of COP26 was the surprise agreement by Kerry’s team and their Chinese counterparts to look beyond U.S.-China rivalry and jointly raise climate efforts this decade.

That deal still stands, but both nations have since backtracked in their respective actions.

The U.S. was the world’s top LNG exporter in January, taking the No. 1 spot from Qatar for a second month running.

Coal consumption has surged, while production climbed 8% in 2021 after years of declines. It’s expected to inch upward through 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In Washington, President Joe Biden is struggling to get his signature “Build Back Better” bill and its core climate measures through the Senate.

An initial proposal, which would have devoted some $555 billion to climate and clean energy, has collapsed amid objections from all of the chamber’s Republicans and a key Democrat, Joe Manchin of coal- and gas-rich West Virginia.

Those climate provisions — including some $355 billion in multiyear tax credits for hydrogen, electric vehicles, and renewables — are essential to fulfilling the U.S. Paris Agreement commitment to slash greenhouse gas emissions 50% to 52% by 2030.

Without them, that pledge is in jeopardy, an analysis by the Rhodium Group found.

Rather than the leadership role that Biden has claimed, that makes the U.S. look like a climate straggler.

Enacting the key provisions is needed “to empower us diplomatically,” Kerry acknowledged in a January interview. “Credibility will be in a hard place if we don’t.”

Read rest at Bloomberg