Post-COP2 - What Is Next For The American Environmental Movement? (Pt 2)
This is Part 2 of 2 of a short series analyzing the future of the American Environmental Movement.
Local Opportunities
While targeting Congress seems futile at the moment, the response to Paris reveals some potential ways forward for the environmental movement. Markedly, the figures that have heeded the call of COP21 have overwhelmingly been state, municipal, and business leaders. Following COP21, San Diego released a legally-binding action plan requiring it to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half and to switch its energy infrastructure to 100 percent renewable energy by the year 2035. In Connecticut, Governor Peter Shumlin in his State of the State speech called on lawmakers to send him a bill divesting Vermont’s public pension funds of their stake in coal and, notably, ExxonMobil.
Connecticut Governor Peter Shumlin
The chief distinction is that the aforementioned examples represent state and local government. In the past, I argued that the environmental movement has barely paid any attention to the climate initiatives on the state and local levels that are under attack by right-wing Astroturf and lobbying groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Independent Petroleum Association, and the American Legislative Exchange Council. I now argue that these state and local levels now present paths through which the environmental movement can advance in addition to the strategy of targeting the executive branch. The global economic landscape also reveals the companies and economic assemblages that the movement can target in order to make progress on the goal of keeping global warming below two degrees Celsius.
On the supply side, activists should target coal production to accelerate the terminal decline of the industry. Because of rising interest rates and slumping global demand, coal companies are having trouble servicing their debt, which means they have no choice but to continue maximizing production and profits for their survival. This fact underscores the value of the coal industry as a target, as any loss in production would in turn make it difficult for the companies to pay off their debts. Activists should support the Sierra Club and Bloomberg Philanthropies in targeting coal-fired power plants in the United States as part of the “Beyond Coal” campaign, which has been remarkably successful in shutting down one power plant every 10 days over the last five years. Due in part to these efforts, 231 coal-fired power plants have been retired as of this writing. Hastening this effort would mandate engagement with state public utilities commissions and their ongoing deliberations, in addition to local representatives and their constituents.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Agency
Since the rejection of the Keystone Pipeline, the environmental movement has begun focusing on stopping the federal leasing of public lands for fossil fuel development. This is an appropriate target. The largest domestic source of carbon emissions is coal extracted from federal lands. While a complete end to federal leasing may be more politically inexpedient than the rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline due to its being a source of revenue for the government, it is undeniable that reform is necessary. Not only is the bidding process nontransparent and noncompetitive, but royalty rates are not based on the market value of coal, nor do they incorporate the social cost of extraction. Essentially, this means that taxpayers are being undercut. With the President having control of the Bureau of Land Management, targeting him is prudent and would preclude having to deal with Congress—at least until the next president takes the Oval Office. Last month, President Obama imposed a three-year moratorium on new leasing for coal mining on federal lands to explore an overhaul of the system, a victory for the environmental movement. However, activists must remain involved in these deliberations to ensure there is substantive change.
The final piece of the “supply-side approach” is exports. While natural gas and renewable energy have indeed accounted for a large share of new installations, that does not mean they have “replaced” coal altogether—a common misperception. American coal companies have responded to unfavorable business conditions by exporting coal abroad, which constitutes an exporting of our emissions. With China having implemented quality standards and tariffs on coal imports, and India aiming to become self-sufficient in coal, however, this effort has not proven effective; coal exports from the United States have plunged. The environmental movement should continue the work of activists and officials in western states in blocking the construction and operation of coal export terminals around the nation. Given the current oversupplied market, choking the supply chain would be devastating for producers. Because of the work of activists so far, 11 of 15 proposals to build coal export facilities across the country have been defeated or canceled as of January 2015.
Oregon Coal Export Protest (Source: Coal Export Action)
Complementing the supply-side approach should also be a strategy that targets the demand side of the equation. This is critical. Without a proportional decrease in demand, lower production may just result in market scarcity in the future, resulting in higher prices and thus higher market power and political clout for fossil fuel producers; some analysts have considered this scenario a possibility for the oil market given enormous investment cuts occurring worldwide. While the sine qua non of any demand-side approach is a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme, passing either of these would necessitate an act of Congress, which is unlikely at the moment.
Luckily, activists would only have to ride the headwinds to have an impact on fossil fuel demand; domestic demand for coal is dwindling due to harsh market conditions, competition from natural gas, and EPA regulations. The environmental movement should work with state and local authorities to strengthen energy efficiency measures, implement zoning ordinances conducive to sustainability goals, and pressure local governments to publish plans for cutting the greenhouse gas emissions of the officials’ jurisdictions 80 percent by 2050. Since 70 percent of global emissions originate from cities, these measures could go a long way in cutting the demand for fossil fuel-based electricity and energy. Activists could even go a step further and encourage cities and localities to enter power purchasing agreements to source a percentage of electricity from renewable energy, as was done in Austin, Texas. The domestic demand for electricity has been flat for years even as GDP has risen, which means the country has had a head start with this issue.
Demand-side tactics for oil are arguably the most difficult (and most controversial) component of this approach. With state policymakers still in the early stages of exploring market-based mechanisms for reducing tailpipe emissions, the general approach has been to nudge individuals to stop driving and utilize alternatives. Given that the nation’s car dependence touches on other complex topics such as urban sprawl and urban planning, a long-term sustainable solution would require more than merely discouraging people from driving. In the short run, however, pushing for increases in state gas taxes and supporting congestion pricing while advocating for increases in funding for public transportation and cycling infrastructure may be a good starting point.
Beyond Symbolic Politics
It is evident that one of the main reasons the environmental movement has succeeded with issues such as the Keystone Pipeline and, to some extent, fossil fuel divestiture, is that these issues became high-profile and symbolic litmus tests for decision makers; the success has nothing to do with their real impact on carbon emissions, per se. That being said, symbols are valuable and necessary; there is much power in the fact that the Keystone Pipeline marks the first time a world leader rejected an infrastructure project for climate reasons. Not only does it highlight the power of the environmental movement, but it also serves to undermine confidence in the viability of future projects for investors and corporate stakeholders.
At the same time, however, one cannot help but consider what could have been accomplished had the resources of the environmental movement been spent on any of the supply- and demand-side avenues listed above. While symbolic battles are indeed important, it is telling that these battles were waged while an unprecedented revolution in domestic energy markets occurred in the background. In the years that our country bickered over the Keystone Pipeline, hundreds of coal plants were shut down, and states reviewed (and in some cases, reconsidered) their existing schemes for incentivizing renewable energy. While these deliberations have involved community groups and environmental nonprofits, many have been conducted in a decentralized and piecewise manner, allowing the conversation to be dominated primarily by utilities, renewable energy companies, policymakers, lobbyists, and lawyers.
Source: Ottawa Sun
There are many reasons why the national movement may have chosen to forego engagement with the demand- and supply-side solutions listed above. One is that many of the issues are technical and even esoteric, relegated to the domains of law, economics, science, and engineering. The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal effort, for instance, has prioritized economic, financial, and fiduciary arguments over environmental and moral arguments to succeed in the endeavor. The existing schemes employed by stakeholders, such as the formation of regional transmission organizations to support resources like batteries for energy storage, are also technical and difficult to understand, requiring financial and legal expertise. Another crucial (and particularly likely) reason the environmental movement has not been ardently involved is that many of the issues mentioned above are just not especially engaging. It is much easier to rally a passionate and diverse constituency around hindering an infrastructure project than around encouraging public transportation and energy efficiency.
That said, the fact that the environmental movement has shifted gears and is now targeting federal fossil fuel leasing on public land is a promising development. Not only is it the largest domestic source of carbon emissions, but it shares characteristics with prior campaigns in its simplicity and symbolic power, representing a positive progression for the movement. Nevertheless, despite the difficulty in doing so, it is critical that the environmental movement not overlook the mundane issues that have the power to change the trajectory of the country, for its voice is critical for ensuring that values do not slip through the cracks in the technical quagmire. Until Congress puts a price on carbon, the movement must not forget to engage constructively and consistently with all pertinent stakeholders, including enthusiastic partners in state and local government, to safeguard the long-term trajectory of COP21.
