Our leaders—good and bad—have understood that they must say and do something about climate change; it is, after all, the worst crisis we’ve ever wandered into as a species. The word they like to say is yes!—to new spending on all sorts of things. Which is great: Joe Biden, for instance, convinced Congress to say yes to the IRA, which has tons of money that, as the Economist pointed out this week, seems to be functioning as intended, spurring lots of investment in wind, solar, EVs and so on. But the ultimate goal of climate policy can’t be just to produce more renewable energy; if it doesn’t also dramatically and quickly cut the production of oil, gas and coal then it won’t really help.  That’s why the news about the Biden administration’s capitulation on the Willow oil complex was so woeful. Here was a brand new project on the most remote and untouched corner of the nation, in a place already so damaged by climate change that its builders may have to refreeze the tundra before they can drill—and yet Biden could not bring himself to say no to the Alaska congressional delegation,                                                                                                                                                Vast new oil fields have also been approved for exploitation by Westernmultinational companies in Guyana, Brazil and Uganda, among others. Some developing countries have argued that income from fossil fuel — essential to the prosperity of the industrialized world — is also their right, and that climate change mitigation is largely the responsibility of wealthy nations. In fact, the president of Ghana told visiting vice-president Kamala Harris last week that he too planned to drill for oil, “which my government is seeking to use as the basis to transform its economy." There wasn’t much she could say in return—Ghana’s moral case is obviously stronger than rich Alaska’s. The most remarkable example may be the United Arab Emirates, which will host this fall’s climate negotiations. Sultan Al Jaber, who will serve as host of the talks, runs the Emirates renewable energy company, Masdar, which claims to have invested more than almost any other corporation in solar and wind—more than $30 billion over the last two decades. Over the last two months he’s told various international forums that “we have to rapidly reduce emissions” and that “oil and gas companies need to align around net zero,” and that “we in the UAE are not shying away from the energy transition. We are running towards it.” But as a Guardian expose this week revealed that the UAE in fact is running in precisely the opposite direction: it has plans for the world’s third-biggest expansion of oil and gas drilling. The busy Al Jaber in fact runs not just its renewable energy company but its fossil fuel company as well, and that one plans to spend $150 billion over the next five years (compared, again, with the $30 billion over the last two decades on the clean stuff) to enable an “accelerated growth strategy” for oil and gas production.,,,,,read on        https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/just-say-no?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email