Travelling through the smog in China: Obama must work with developing countries to cut carbon emissions ©ImagineChina/Rex
President Obama loves to note that under his leadership the US has cut greenhouse gases emissions to their lowest level in 20 years. He also likes to brag that oil and gas have reached 30 year highs since he took office. How is this possible?
The short answers: energy efficiency, a switch from coal to cleaner natural gas, relicensing of nuclear plants, subsidies for renewable energy, high global oil prices and amazing new drilling technologies.
Yet all is not sweetness and light crude. Many activists here are concerned that America may begin to simply export its emissions, playing a kind of cosmic shell game with the world’s climate. They point to a new Republican effort to lift a ban on crude oil exports. But these fears will prove unfounded if America minds its policy.
Right now the US exports large amounts of coal, including to the greener-than-thou UK, Germany and Netherlands. Obama should push exports of US liquefied natural gas to Europe instead. Gas is not only lower emitting than coal, but also critical to expanding renewable energy because unlike nuclear gas plants it can ramp up quickly when sun and wind are lacking.
Obama should also encourage strict regulations of emissions from natural gas and oil production, to cut methane and related emissions. He must make bigger investments in large scale energy storage, the key to ending long-term reliance on fossil fuels, preferably funded by a carbon tax, though current prospects for that are dim.
But mostly, the president must work closely with the Chinese, whose emissions are double those of the US, and other developing countries to deploy technologies like carbon capture and storage and efficiency. Otherwise, an explosion in developing country emissions will soon swamp cuts made in the west. Done right, America can have its hydrocarbons and climate, too—at least for a while.
