From Bill McKibbon- Different Kinds of Winning DEC 22, 2023
We are, I think, edging towards a win on LNG exports, which would be a very good thing: a pause on the biggest fossil fuel expansion plan on earth. The question, I think, is if it will be the kind of win that makes it easier to boost the beleaguered presidential campaign of Joe Biden—which has got to be a central focus for anyone worried about the planet’s (and our democracy’s) future. And that is largely up to the White House. When I say I think we’ll win, it’s not because of any inside information; it’s because the logic of this campaign—waged for lonely years by wonderful frontline leaders along the Gulf of Mexico—has unfolded so powerfully in the last few months. First, campaigners managed to finally comprehend and publicize the lunatic scale of this buildout. People living near these enormous facilities have always known they were enormous, but in recent months the rest of us have gotten a much better idea of the scale. So much fracked gas is now pouring out through the Gulf that it wipes out the gains under the president’s IRA clean energy plans; indeed, it wipes out all the emission reductions made since the turn of the century.As hundreds of top climate scientists pointed out this week, if the buildout keeps going as industry intends—and so far the Trump and Biden administrations have granted them every permit they’ve asked far—U.S. LNG exports will eventually account for more greenhouse gas emissions than every car and home and factory in Europe. Second, new data has given that sense of scale extra heft: above all, Bob Howarth, the Cornell professor who is the planetary authority on methane pubished new research demonstrating that huge amounts of LNG leak out to the atmosphere during shipping, making it far far worse for the climate even than coal.Third, new data has demonstrated that these exports raise the price of natural gas for those Americans who still depend on it for cooking and heating—which probably also explains the remarkable polling data showing just how opposed Americans are to fracking the country and then sending the resulting gas off to Asia. Fourth, more new data has demonstrated that we’re already supplying more than enough to make Europe whole against the cutoff of Russian supplies in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. And fifth—newest and most important of all—America joined 200 other nations earlier this month in Dubai in signing an accord promising that we would “transition away from fossil fuels.” There is no possible way to read those words and conclude that we should further expand the already world-leading American export machine for fossil fuels. If the administration does announce a pause on new export licenses, it will be a mighty win. But how they do it will be crucial, because this also represents a chance to reposition the president going into an election year. Some of that is perhaps unfair; Biden’s gotten less credit than he should for the IRA(Inflation Reduction Act) which is the most important boost for clean energy that any president—probably any world leader—has ever providedIf the administration does announce a pause on new export licenses, it will be a mighty win. But how they do it will be crucial, because this also represents a chance to reposition the president going into an election year. +As the fossil fuel divestment movement soared past the 1,600-endowments/$40 trillion-in-assets benchmark, Daniel DiLeo writes in the National Catholic Reporter that a growing number of Catholic institutions (but by no means all) are heeding the Pope’s call to divest from the fossil fuel industryThe moral rationale is that it is unethical and imprudent to invest in corporations whose core business model is incompatible with what science indicates is required to avoid climate catastrophe. Spiritually, to divest is to offer a sacramental, material act of love to the neighbor — to offer resources that create healthy and life-affirming energy systems.Pastorally, divestment can advance the new evangelizationwhich must be "new in its methods that must correspond to the times." Youth and young adults are anxious about climate change, prioritize it as the most important issue and are disaffiliating from the church. Divestment witnesses faith-based hope. Practically, divestment frees capital for reinvestment in clean energy. The International Energy Agency says limiting warming to 1.5 C "hinges on" these investments. Advocates also argue divestment can morally stigmatize corporations so that elected officials become disinclined to accept fossil fuel campaign money — and thus become freer to pass climate policy. And on another issue, according to Bloomberg, banks are actually getting worse about financing dirty energy:In this second edition of our annual report on energy supply financing, we analyze the factors affecting both capital investment and financing, and update our analysis of bank-facilitated financing. In 2022, financing for low-carbon energy was 73% of that for fossil fuels – meaning that for every dollar supporting fossil-fuel supply, $0.73 supported low-carbon energy, a slight decline from $0.75 in 2021. Despite improvements in the ratio of real-economy investment, neither this nor bank financing is changing at the pace or scale required to hit the minimum 4:1 ratio needed this decade, as implied by commonly referenced climate scenarios that limit global warming to 1.5C........for other issues, read on https://billmckibben.