by Yang Shilong, Zhang Juan
NEW YORK, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Partisan politics, interest lobby groups call into question the credibility and feasibility of U.S. climate change pledges despite a new legislative move.
President Joe Biden has recently signed into law a tax, health and energy bill, which he touted as "the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis."
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes a roughly 400-billion-U.S.-dollar investment over the next 10 years in fighting climate change by building more solar and wind power, making buildings more energy-efficient and helping people buy electric vehicles.
LONG OVERDUE
"Much of this is focused on reducing carbon emissions through a series of tax incentives," Barry G. Rabe, public policy professor at the University of Michigan, told Xinhua.
"But it also includes a fee on methane emissions, which would produce a more rigorous measurement system and provide incentives for reducing emissions. Along with some earlier steps taken by the Biden Administration, this would represent a very significant advance on methane," he said.
The best current projection is that the IRA, described as the nation's most consequential climate policy yet, will reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 2005 levels in 2030, compared with an estimated 30 percent under current policy.
That would put the country within striking distance of reaching its commitment in the Paris Agreement to cut emissions by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
While calling the IRA a "starting point," experts and activists say the legislation is long overdue and the United States, the world's largest historical emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases, needs to do more.
"No bill was ever going to make up for the U.S. Congress being 30 years too late to the party," Dan Lashof, the U.S. director of the World Resources Institute, was quoted by The Washington Post as saying. "It's a breakthrough, but we're starting from a pretty deep hole that we need to dig out of."
Statistics showed the United States has been responsible for about 25 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions released into the atmosphere since 1870 -- the equivalent of the historic emissions of 181 countries combined. Even today, its per capita emissions are among the highest in the world.
For all the U.S. posturing at global climate summits, Washington's climate leadership has been inconsistent despite its disproportionate impact on the global climate.
The United States failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 and withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2020 under President Donald Trump's administration. Its previous landmark climate legislation -- the American Clean Energy and Security Act, or the Waxman-Markey bill -- failed dramatically in Congress in 2009. The bill would have set a cap on carbon emissions and established a trading system in which polluters pay for allowances to exceed the cap.
STARKLY PARTISAN
Noticeably, the IRA passed through party-line votes in the Senate and the House with all Democrats and not a single Republican voted in favor of the package.
"The number drives home an unmistakable reality: even after years of effort from environmentalists, climate change remains a starkly partisan issue in America," Robinson Meyer, a staff writer at The Atlantic, wrote.
Partisan polarization is a "significant problem" for the United States in taking really serious climate action as "that's gonna take bipartisan support," Frederick Mayer, dean and professor of Josef Korbel School of International Studies at University of Denver, told Xinhua.
"I was very unhappy when Trump withdrew from the Paris accord and I was very pleased that Biden rejoined. And I think the world was happy to have us back, but they're also wondering whether the U.S. can lead on climate change. And I'm sure looking from the outside at our politics, there's a big question there," said Mayer.
"We have domestic politics and certain amount of political dysfunction now that makes it harder for us to move. Yes, it's more difficult for the U.S. to lead on these issues," said Mayer.
A majority of Republicans and Independents who lean Republican, about 82 percent, say Biden's climate policies are hurting the country while 79 percent of Democrats and those who lean left were broadly supportive, found a Pew survey published in July.
Experts noted that no more action on climate change will come from Congress this year due to unified Republican opposition and the Biden administration can only rely on pushing more executive actions to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly after the Supreme Court limited the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants in a recent ruling.
Yet because the IRA has a decade-long time span, the risk remains that changes in administration could slow climate investment.
"But if the GOP sticks to its steadfast opposition to any significant climate policy, that could have complications for the IRA going forward ... but at some point, can Republicans reverse it?" asked Meyer in his Atlantic story.
"Congress can do anything it wants within its constitutional limits. The geography of the Senate is skewed against Democrats' current demographic coalition, and there's a good chance the GOP will take over the chamber in November. If Republicans win 60 votes in the Senate, creating a filibuster-proof majority, then no possibility is off-limits," Meyer said.
VESTED INTERESTS
The IRA, essentially a slimmed-down version of Biden's Build Back Better Act, also came with many concessions that advance fossil fuel interests to win support from West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a coal millionaire who has made no secret of his preference for propping up the fossil fuel industry.
"Money is a huge problem that hampers the U.S.'s ability to fight climate change. Not only do fossil fuel companies donate to our politicians, but many of our politicians own investments in fossil fuels. There is little motivation to act in ways that would reduce their personal wealth," Maya Golden-Krasner, deputy director and senior attorney, Climate Law Institute, Center for Biological Diversity, told Xinhua.
According to Golden-Krasner, fossil fuels are responsible for 85 percent of climate pollution. At the same time, the fossil fuel industry has been making huge profits -- almost 3 billion U.S. dollars per day for 50 years. "That's a lot of money to buy influence, put out disinformation, file lawsuits, and do anything it can to block climate action to continue making money."
"We have seen its influence in Congress. However, the majority of the American people want climate action and more and more people are feeling the effects of global heating, from deadly heatwaves to permanent droughts to massive hurricanes. We need all of our branches of government to act," she said.
"The U.S. is historically the largest cumulative emitter of climate pollution and one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Yet, we are moving at a snail's pace in terms of confronting climate change. Certainly four years of President Trump didn't help, but we are truly at an inflection point. It's time for us to treat climate change like the emergency it is," said Golden-Krasner.
The U.S. still remains a deeply fossil-addicted economy. In 2021, about 61 percent of its electricity came from fossil fuels. Its shale gas revolution has turned it into a major oil and gas producer.
Corporate lobbying reduced the likelihood of passing the Waxman-Markey bill, resulting in an expected 60 billion U.S. dollars in climate costs to society, according to a study by economists from UC Santa Barbara and the University of Chicago in 2019.
Referred to by the media as "the sum of all lobbies," companies spent more than 700 million U.S. dollars to lobby the bill, totaling about 14 percent of all lobbying expenditures between 2009 and 2010, said the research. ■
