Authors from Part 11 of our policies series respond. (Previously: Fred Krupp, "The Moment for Urgent Climate Action;" Mark P. Mills, "The Path to a Bipartisan Energy Agenda.")
Response to Fred Krupp
Let me start where Fred Krupp and I agree. We both want a more secure America, a vibrant economy and more jobs, to “spur innovation, and strengthen manufacturing,” and to have all that with no pollution of any kind. And we agree that the “stakes are enormous.”
The stakes are high because energy is needed for everything people use and do, everywhere and always, even in the so-called virtual world of the Internet. If you watched the World Series streaming to your smartphone, for instance, your personal share of energy use, hidden in the vast digital ecosystem, was greater than driving 300 miles in a Prius. Consuming 100 GB of wireless data consumes roughly the same amount of energy as producing beef for 15 hamburgers. Smartphones are the SUVs of the information economy.
“Mr. Krupp’s is right that America has recently reduced carbon dioxide emissions. But that came almost entirely from the massive increase in cheap shale gas underpricing coal.”
Mr. Krupp is focused on climate concerns as a policy motivator. But we don’t need to litigate the intricacies of climate claims to reach useful conclusions about underlying realities regarding energy supply and demand. Setting aside how we fuel our digital economies at a tolerable cost, there are billions of people in the world who lack adequate food, water, and shelter, never mind air conditioning, cars, vacations, and video games. When — not if — the world’s 4 billion poor rise to just 15 percent of our per capita energy use, they will add an America’s worth to global energy demand. That’s a sobering calibration. The sheer scale of global energy dynamics is precisely why Bill Gates highlighted the need to bring “math skills to the problem.”
No matter how earnestly one calls for “leadership, ambition, and urgency,” two core facts are unavoidable.
First, the laws of physics place strict boundaries around what technologies can do. Mr. Krupp (and many others) say that “we have the technologies to make deep cuts” into our dependency on hydrocarbons. The fact is we don’t, as Google’s engineers found. That reality is what motivated Mr. Gates’ call for “miracles.”
Mr. Krupp’s is right that America has recently reduced carbon dioxide emissions. But that came almost entirely from the massive increase in cheap shale gas underpricing coal. The cost-effectiveness of shale technology has improved (and is still improving) faster than solar and wind technologies.
Second, the laws of human behavior establish boundaries, especially regarding money and global governance. Hydrocarbons supply 80 percent of global energy; aspirational policies to eliminate that fact are all far too expensive in economic and political terms. The “historic” Paris agreement is, as everyone knows, a paper-thin unenforceable wish list. As the New York Times candidly reported: “For the climate accord to work, governments must resist the lure of cheap fossil fuels in favor of policies that encourage and, in many cases, require the use of zero-carbon energy sources. But those policies can be expensive.” This will be especially onerous for a world still coming out of recession. Consequently, climate-centric policy proponents are calling for “new supra- and transnational institutions” to “transform world economies” along with proposals for mandates “for global governance of energy…limiting final energy demand.” I think Leonardo DiCaprio best summarized prospects for a transformation that would have us “come together” as a world community: “The human race has never done anything like that in the history of civilization.”
Mr. Krupp is pleased with the new “global pact” to “control aviation emissions.” We’ll see what happens if the UN attempts to convert a PR victory with a voluntary pact into a real set of mandates. Regardless, aviation is political and economic small ball because aircraft account for 8 percent of transportation fuel use; cars and trucks use 80 percent. And policymakers are familiar with voters’ affection for cheap energy. Consider the latest news from the EIA as a shot across the policymakers’ bow: This past summer, low prices helped drive all-time records in gasoline use and miles traveled in America.
During the 2012 campaign, before the oil price collapse, President Obama said repeatedly: “We can’t just drill our way to…$2 gas." As it turns out, we could and we did. And it’s that astonishingly productive shale technology which is creating global head winds both for the oil and gas industry and for any non-hydrocarbon competition. People like cheap energy.
(For the opposing view, see Fred Krupp, "The Moment for Urgent Climate Action.")
Read the entire piece here on RealClearPolicy
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Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.
Fred Krupp is President of Environmental Defense Fund.
This piece originally appeared in RealClearPolicy