The most significant impact of this week’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. the Environmental Protection Agency is to doom any international effort to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
That may be bad or good news depending on who you are, or where you live, or for whom you work. But to me it’s clear that the various COPs, the IPCC, the Paris accord, etc., are dead letters, relics of modern history, killed by a gerrymandered court determined to limit the ability of a Democratic executive branch to act without express, detailed instructions from Congress.
Whether wittingly or not (it really makes no difference) the court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, rendered the long and ongoing international attempt to curb greenhouse gas emissions ineffective. Clearly this court understands that federal agencies and executive branch institutions need flexible authority to react to events around the world. But the court only acknowledges this with brief handwaving about the scope of Section 111(d) of the 1990 Clean Air Act update.
Here is Roberts, writing the majority opinion: “Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible “solution to the crisis of the day.” New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 187 (1992). But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme in Section 111(d). A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.”
It isn’t clear to me that upholding the Obama administration’s coal backdown rule, which the Biden administration revived after Trump tried to euthanize it, would have meant either U.S. or global success. Much of the international action dating back to Al Gore’s Kyoto Protocol has been feckless or cynical.
But it is clear to me that without the U.S. as an active participant in a worldwide effort, nothing efficacious can result.
First, U.S. politics. Congress is not going to pass legislation providing a clear roadmap to any White House, whether led by Democrats or Republicans, for substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Congress, reflecting both the divisions in the nation and its own political paralysis, can’t do easy stuff, let alone something significant.
At a time when U.S. politics as less corrosive and more bipartisan, it took Congress from 1977 to 1990 to rework the Clean Air Act, driven by a push to address alleged U.S. acid rain, caused by SO2.
Now, the court, and our current politics, take the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, out of any global program, with no prospects that Congress will respond.
Who’s left? Here’s the list of the world’s top 10 emitters of greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (79% of global greenhouse emissions), methane (11%), nitrous oxide (7%), and fluorinated gases (3%), in metric tons for 2019.
1.China — 9,877
2.United States — 4,745
3.India — 2,310
3.India — 2,310
4.Russia — 1,640
5.Japan — 1,056
6.Germany — 644
7.South Korea — 586
8.Iran — 583
9.Canada — 571
10.Saudi Arabia — 495
Only the most credulous of observers would believe that China, India, and Russia are really serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, despite lip service. Indeed, in all three, coal consumption is increasing, driven by exogenous factors (the war in Ukraine, weather) and domestic (higher prices for oil and natural gas).
Figures for 2022 are not available, but the International Energy Agency has published 2021 data. According to the IEA, “Global CO2 emissions from energy combustion and industrial processes1 rebounded in 2021 to reach their highest ever annual level. A 6% increase from 2020 pushed emissions to 36.3 gigatonnes (Gt), an estimate based on the IEA’s detailed region-by-region and fuel-by-fuel analysis, drawing on the latest official national data and publicly available energy, economic and weather data.”
IEA adds – and this is grounds for overall pessimism – “This puts 2021 above 2010 as the largest ever year-on-year increase in energy-related CO2 emissions in absolute terms. The rebound in 2021 more than reversed the pandemic-induced decline in emissions of 1.9 Gt experienced in 2020. CO2 emissions in 2021 rose to around 180 megatonnes (Mt) above the pre-pandemic level of 2019.”
Greenhouse gas reductions are not going well today. Taking the U.S. out of the effort, as the court has clearly done, means greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow in the years ahead, not decline or remain stable.
What are the implications for the U.S. and the world? Adaptation is the key. Fortunately, homo sapiens as a very adaptable species. Climate change is not an “existential” threat, in any sane definition of the word, but is potentially damaging and, thanks in part to the U.S. Supreme Court, inevitable.
–Kennedy Maize
Tiwtter (@kennedymaize)