How Democrats’ climate plan is impacting fossil fuels

The Big Story 

The Democrats’ signature climate plan is helping to unleash a flood of fossil fuels onto world markets — even as American consumers increasingly turn away from those products, according to a new report. 

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According to advocacy group Oil Change International, oil and gas consumption within the U.S. will fall by 16 percent by 2035 amid implementation of the clean energy stimulus Inflation Reduction Act.

But a report from the group released this week also predicted that the bill’s support for oil and gas would produce a corresponding rise in gas production — even as the U.S. economy goes electric — with the difference to be exported and burned overseas. 

That’s something some of the bill’s policy architects are proud of. “Because of the Inflation Reduction Act, we are producing fossil fuels at record levels,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) wrote in September in The Wall Street Journal. 

When Democrats passed the IRA, “the focus was on ‘let’s fund the good things,’” said Lorne Stockman of advocacy group Oil Change International, which used data from the Rhodium Group to assemble Monday’s report on the fossil fuel boost enabled by the IRA. 

But the Biden administration, Stockman argued, failed to commit to what its own scientists were saying: that to ensure a safe climate, “the fossil fuel industry must go into decline.” 

The advocacy group’s report comes on the heels of U.N. findings that steep additional emissions cuts were needed by 2030 to avoid barreling past the levels of planetary heating seen as safe. 

This was a serious overshoot, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday. Guterres compared the gap to a “canyon littered with broken promises, broken lives, and broken records.” 

Guterres emphasized that this “betrayal of the vulnerable” was also a “massive missed opportunity. Renewables have never been cheaper or more accessible.” 

To be sure, the Rhodium model that projected IRA impacts — which Oil Change International used in preparing their report — suggests that the U.S. is moving “in the right direction,” and the administration is on track to reduce emissions levels by the end of the decade. 

That tracks the broader global trajectory, with Monday’s U.N. report finding the world slowly bending the curve toward decreased emissions — increasing an estimated 3 percent by 2030 instead of the 16 percent estimated when the Paris climate accords were adopted.

But the UN emphasized that emissions need to fall by 42 percent to keep the global climate system stable. 

And the U.S. currently isn’t keeping up with its own plans to make sure that national emissions in 2030 are half what they were in 2005 — the year the fracking boom kicked off a vast expansion in domestic oil and gas production, according to the original Rhodium report. 

In a March follow-up, Rhodium found that meeting the Biden climate goal was still possible — if Congress, the presidency and cities and states all worked together. 

But with the House controlled by the GOP, which has repeatedly passed bills seeking to defund the IRA, such unified action is currently unlikely. (Republicans also control a majority of state legislatures.)

And as the U.N. found on Monday, these numbers are just the beginning of the much deeper and more extensive economic transformation that will be needed. 

Stockman, with Oil Change International, told The Hill that the problem is political — not technological: giant batteries are already outcompeting gas plants, as Reuters reported this week.

But in the arena of policy and regulation, battery companies “are struggling to compete against an incumbent [gas] industry that is peddling a myth,” Stockman said.

Welcome to The Hill’s Sustainability newsletter, I’m Saul Elbein — every week we follow the latest moves in the growing battle over sustainability in the U.S. and around the world.

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Essential Reads 

Latest news impacting sustainability this week and beyond:

Fossil fuel industry keys in on unproven recycling methods to prop up plastics

California megafires are causing long-term shifts in wildlife survival strategies: Study

Noise pollution disproportionately affects marginalized communities and area wildlife: Study

Many corporations promote ‘net zero’ while lobbying for weaker climate action: Report

Migrant Crisis? 

© Getty

A new report raises concerns over the treatment of workers involved in building the venue that will host the next U.N. climate conference (COP28) and other sites in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Nonprofit labor rights group Equidem said in a report released Monday that a survey of 248 workers involved in building Dubai’s Expo City and renewable energy projects across the UAE revealed claims of rampant hunger, overcrowding and discrimination.

Many migrant workers reported sleeping in rooms stuffed to three times their capacity, while others said they couldn’t afford healthy food and some said they were skipping meals.

Official response: When Equidem shared the results with Expo City, representatives reportedly asked investigators to “share details of the companies and, where possible, the workers.” It also advised that workers call its hotline, according to the report.

The Hill separately reached out for comment from Expo City.

Climate migrants: The report found that more than half of the workers interviewed — 57 percent — had come to work in the UAE from regions battered by the impacts of planetary heating. 

• One former pharmaceutical worker from Pakistan told the group, “I had to leave my job because of rains and floods.”
  
  

• Another farmer from India said damage from flooding meant “those doing agriculture work in our area face a lot of difficulties.”

Keep in mind: The UAE economy is largely supported by oil and gas exports — and the increased heating driving rising weather extremes is a phenomenon almost entirely caused by the burning of the fossil fuels.

Bound to employers: The Expo City that will host next week’s UN conference was built — as were the many new renewable energy plants that power it — under the UAE migrant labor system called Kafala, or sponsorship.

Nonprofits have long pointed to serious problems with the system, in which migrant workers are effectively bound to the companies that import them. 

• Under this system, “workers have little recourse in the face of exploitation, and many experts argue that the system facilitates modern slavery,” the Council for Foreign Relations found.
  
  

• While the UAE version of Kafala has been reformed in recent decades — employees can now leave the country without their employer’s permission — workers remain vulnerable “to trafficking, forced labor, and other exploitation,” a 2020 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report stated. 

On Our Radar 

Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:

• We’re gearing up to cover the U.N. climate change conference (COP28), which starts next Thursday.

• The U.S. is expected to present at COP28 a sweeping new strategy for commercial fusion power — another yet-unproven technology that promises a vast new source for carbon-free electricity.

In Other News 

Branch out with different reads from The Hill:

New Jersey to phase out new gas-powered vehicles by 2035

New Jersey will phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, joining states such as California and New York, Gov. Phil Murphy (D) announced Wednesday. 

Full Story

Severe storms, snow threaten Thanksgiving travel

Severe storms and possible snow is expected to snarl Thanksgiving travel.

Full Story

Around The Nation 

Local and state headlines on sustainability issues:

• Climate activists, companies lawyer up for courtroom battles (Colorado Springs Gazette)

• New hardiness zone map will help US gardeners keep pace with climate change (Detroit News)

• Why isn’t California counting all its greenhouse gas emissions? (Los Angeles Times)

What We’re Reading 

Sustainability news we’ve flagged from other outlets:

• The Trade That Backfired for America’s Biggest Wood-Pellet Exporter (Wall Street Journal)

• Backlash forces EPA to pause toxic PFAS waste imports to US from Netherlands (The Guardian)

• Biden’s Electric-Vehicle Push Hits a Speed Bump (Wall Street Journal)

What Others are Reading 

More stories on The Hill right now:

When will Social Security cost-of-living increases take effect?

The Social Security Administration announced 2024’s cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) just over a month ago, confirming a 3.2% bump in benefits for retirees. Here’s what you need to know. Read more

Alcohol and caffeine together have a surprising effect on sleep: study

A new study evaluating the combined effects of alcohol and caffeine found that both substances, when used together, have an “unexpected” effect on sleep. Read more

What People Think 

Opinions related to sustainability submitted to The Hill:

• We cannot wait for climate action — climate change will not wait for us 

• Recycling won’t solve the plastic problem. Here’s what will.

• A century after the Osage murders, ‘guardians’ still harm American Indians 

You’re all caught up. See you next week!