Your guide to the political forces shaping the energy transformation
| | | | |  | | By Arianna Skibell | |  President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House, March 11, 2021, in Washington. | Andrew Harnik/AP | On the cusp of Donald Trump’s rise to power, President Joe Biden has announced a new U.S. climate goal to slash emissions 61-66 percent by 2035. While the president-elect is sure to disregard the planetary pollution reduction target, analysts say it sends a clear signal of what the world’s largest economy can do to fight climate change even without federal assistance, write Sara Schonhardt and Zack Colman. (Plus, the blueprint is required under the Paris Agreement.) “The 2035 climate target can serve as a North Star for states, cities and corporations that are committed to climate action,” said Manish Bapna with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The target marks an increase from Biden’s 2021 pledge to slash carbon pollution 50-52 percent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. But it’s at the lower bound of what scientists say is necessary to stave off the worst climate change has to offer, said Debbie Weyl of the World Resources Institute. Actually achieving those reductions under a new president who has pledged to exit the Paris Agreement and ramp up fossil fuel production is another story. The Biden White House said the new goal can be achieved through a combination of surviving Biden-era policies, stronger state and local action, and technology advancements such as cheaper solar and wind power, nuclear energy and electric grid updates. None of which is a given. A bipartisan push in Congress to speed up deployment of high-voltage, long range power lines has stalled (again). Biden this week greenlit California’s plan to phase out gasoline-powered cars, but Trump has already pledged to roll it back. “Everyone understands it’s going to be very hard to meet this target, given Trump will take us off the field for the next four years,” said Alden Meyer with the environmental think tank E3G. “But they understand it for what it is — what the U.S. should be doing.”
| | | It's Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@eenews.net.
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Lee Zeldin is President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead EPA. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP | Climate hot spot: Zeldin's hometown
As Trump and his allies prepare to claw back policies to address climate change, an ambitious plan to fight worsening floods and storms on Long Island is coming into focus, writes Miranda Wilson. In the region that Lee Zeldin — Trump’s pick to lead EPA — calls home, the federal government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to combat coastal flooding, rising tides and beach erosion. Victory for Montana kids' climate case
The Montana Supreme Court delivered a blockbuster win to a group of young climate activists, finding that the state is violating the rights of its youngest residents for a stable environment, writes Lesley Clark. The justices affirmed a lower court decision that state lawmakers had flouted Montanans' constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment” by passing a law that bars state agencies from considering the climate effects of fossil fuel projects. Rural utilities are slashing CO2. Will it last?
Biden-era policies have pumped billions into helping rural electric cooperatives clean up their energy supply, and those co-ops are urging the Trump administration to preserve many of those policies, writes Jason Plautz. Trump's pick to head the Agriculture Department, which oversees rural co-ops, has blamed clean power for high energy prices and advocated for fossil fuels — making the fate of clean energy policies murky.
| | Ho ho ho: As climate change threatens Christmas trees, the farming industry tries to evolve. How to repair the planet? One answer might be hiding in plain sight.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) at the Capitol this week. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP | Republicans have struck a deal on a short-term government spending patch and potential debt limit increase, with a House vote expected as early as this evening. Advanced nuclear startup Oklo announced plans to power data centers across the country operated by the company Switch — one of the largest corporate power agreements in history. Trump is resuming his slugfest with California — this time over the future of the car industry — more than a month before he takes office. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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