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XI DOWNPLAYS CLIMATE GOALS: China’s Xi Jinping told fellow Communist Party leaders the country’s strategy on climate change will “ensure the normal life of the masses,” raising additional questions as to how aggressive the globe’s top emitter intends to be in pursuing greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
Xi said “reducing emissions is not about reducing productivity, and it is not about not emitting at all, either,” also telling party leaders that China must “overcome the notion of rapid success” on lowering emissions.
A change in tone: Remember that climate envoy John Kerry claimed a major agreement between the U.S. and China to work together on climate change mitigation and to collectively “raise climate ambition” following the COP26 conference.
President Joe Biden had emphasized ahead of the conference his view that China (and Russia, too) isn’t doing enough to cut emissions. And the Biden administration maintains that rapid success is what leading emitters must achieve if the Paris Agreement’s global temperature targets are to remain within reach.
Notably, though, in that agreement, China didn’t agree to any concrete pledges, emissions targets, or timeframes for this decade.
Perhaps the most that could be said about it was that China had agreed at least in principle that it was on the same page as the U.S. in terms of reducing emissions. But now Xi appears to be saying that such goals will be subordinate to China’s other ambitions.
China’s commitments versus what the U.S. would want: On paper, China aims to see its greenhouse gas emissions peak before 2030 and to reach net-zero by 2060, and Xi’s pronouncements mesh with that broad strategy, says Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst with the Europe-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
“The approach that the leadership is taking over this decade is not to pin down a specific emissions pathway, which we of course from a climate standpoint would want to see,” Myllyvirta told Jeremy.
“The fact that these targets still leave space for emissions to increase until late this decade — that’s a very slow start to getting to net-zero emissions,” he said.
The context: Myllyvirta emphasized that Xi’s words were likely motivated by the severe power shortages China faced last fall, when the Chinese economy suffered major disruptions because of ballooning electricity demand with which supply couldn’t keep up.
The power crunch led some manufacturers to shut down operations, and associated blackouts reached beyond the industrial sector into residential homes.
On economic disruption: Biden administration and European officials have framed the necessary transition to green energy as inherently disruptive, one entailing “wholesale transformation” of economies, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said.
The mandate is to find ways to manage those disruptions with monetary and energy policies, as European Central Bank executive board member Isabel Schnabel said earlier this month.
“Governments will have to protect the most vulnerable parts of society from higher energy prices in a way that does not delay the green transition,” Schnabel said during an American Finance Association-hosted panel on climate change and the financial system.
But avoiding disruption altogether is an impossible task, said Myllyvirta.
“Over the next decade, it’s going to be disruptive, especially in the next two decades. It’s going to be disruptive in the sense that energy structures and industrial structures and so on will change, and in terms of technologies, and cities and enterprises — there are going to be winners and losers,” he said.
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INTERIOR CANCELS TWIN METALS MINERAL LEASES: The Biden administration yesterday cancelled mineral leases for the Twin Metals mining project in Minnesota. The department’s Office of Solicitor determined that Interior improperly renewed the leases during the Trump administration.
Environmentalists have long been opposed to mining in the region, arguing it would harm the 1.1 million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The Biden administration announced an environmental review period for the region last October and began formally considering a 20-year mineral leasing withdrawal of key portions of national forest lands.
Mining projects like Twin Metals are central to debates over how the federal government can best manage priorities of protecting the environment while also enabling development in critical industries like mining which are integral to green energy policies.
Republicans have been especially critical of the Biden administration’s decisions on domestic mining, arguing they force domestic manufacturers to source critical minerals such as copper and nickel — key inputs in batteries and other renewable energy technologies — from the likes of China. Republican Rep. Pete Stauber, who represents the district in which the Twin Metals project is located, asserted the administration “doesn’t have a plan for mineral independence” after yesterday’s decision from Interior.
ADMINISTRATION EXPLICIT ON NORD STREAM 2: “I want to be very clear about this. If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a CNN interview today.
It’s perhaps the clearest statement yet from the Biden team that the pipeline will be halted in the case of invasion.
The Biden administration opposed legislation that failed in the Senate earlier this month sponsored by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas that would have imposed heavy sanctions on the company behind Nord Stream 2. The bill did receive some Democratic support.
But the administration also backed a bill put forward by Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez to impose sanctions on Russia and provide military assistance to Ukraine if Russia escalates, Washington Examiner reporter Mike Brest notes.
ARGUMENT – DEMOCRATS SHOULD CHAMPION GAS EXPORTS TO EUROPE: The United States should be more strongly urging the European Union to decrease its reliance on dirty Russian gas and build more liquified natural gas infrastructure to increase exports of its cleaner competitor from the U.S., Progressive Policy Institute’s Paul Bledsoe said during a forum yesterday.
Bledsoe, a former Clinton staffer, riffed off a paper of his PPI published last month expounding the multifaceted problem of Russian gas and positing that its uptake at current scale in Europe contributes to geopolitical instability — and worsens climate change.
“The leaks of methane from Russian gas are so high that it’s actually worse than coal, and the Europeans are in real denial about this problem,” he said yesterday.
Bledsoe also said the Biden administration should be encouraging more LNG exports — something Biden has hinted that he wants to see — arguing it can help meet global decarbonization goals.
“I really feel like the Democratic Party needs to embrace the strategic opportunities of natural gas to meet our climate, security, and economic goals,” he said.
What the party thinks of gas: Some congressional Democrats have been not only “reluctant” to do that, as Bledsoe said, but outright opposed, pushing Biden to ban fuel commodity exports with domestic energy prices where they are.
But Biden and co. have taken that possibility off the table entirely, and John Kerry made clear this week that gas can be a big help to meeting emissions goals, so long as it’s clean.
RELATED – PERRY DOESN’T LIKE BIDEN GAS PLANS FOR RUSSIAN INVASION: Former Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry bashed the Biden administration’s contingency planning to bring natural gas-producing countries together to divert supply to Europe in the case of disruptions if Russia invades, discussed in yesterday’s newsletter.
“Governments have a really hard time manipulating markets, and I think that’s what you’re seeing here,” Perry said on CNBC yesterday.
GREENS RESPOND TO BREYER RETIREMENT: Environmental activists see an “in” now that Justice Stephen Breyer will retire after spending nearly three decades on the Supreme Court.
Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen said Breyer “has always demonstrated a nuanced perspective on administrative and environmental issues” and that Biden needs to nominate a similarly “fair-minded” replacement.
Evergreen Action Executive Director Jamal Raad said Breyer’s retirement will create a vacancy “that must be filled with a nominee who will uphold the laws that protect our air, water, climate, and health.”
Raad and others noted yesterday that Breyer voted with the majority in Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007, a ruling which in part determined that EPA can regulate greenhouse gases as “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act.
Breyer has yet to say when he will step away, but assuming he sees out the current court term, he’ll be on the bench to hear arguments in West Virginia v. EPA at the end of next month, a major pending case that will take up the question of what kind of authority EPA has to regulate emissions from power plants.
LOS ANGELES TO BAN AND PHASE OUT OIL WELLS: The Los Angeles City Council voted yesterday to ban new oil and gas wells and to phase out existing ones over the course of five years.
There are more than 1,000 active or idle wells within city limits, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The ban was motivated by health complaints from residents living near the wells.
“We are reinforcing our commitment to environmental justice,” said council member Nury Martinez, who introduced the measure.
The Rundown
Wall Street Journal The case for $100 oil: More driving, less drilling
E&E News Why the Russia crisis matters for U.S. energy
Calendar
FRIDAY| JAN. 28
11 a.m. The United States Energy Association will host a virtual press briefing on the Energy Department’s “Building a Better Grid” initiative.
