Thread by @dwallacewells

"For all the admirable sophistication of its targeting, there is one outstanding and all-important question: is the investment program big enough, and will it actually reduce emissions?" The great @adam_tooze gives the Biden Jobs plan a close read. (1/x) newstatesman.com/world/north-am…

"At a generous estimate, half of the $2trn to $2.7trn is devoted to tackling the climate crisis. Spreading $1trn to $1.3trn over eight years comes to around 0.5 per cent of current GDP annually. That is far short of any reasonable estimate of the investment needed."

"The Bernie Sanders camp, backed by the writer and activist Bill McKibben’s 350.org campaign, wanted $16.3trn. The Thrive Act proposal supported by groups associated with the Green New Deal is asking for $10trn, with 80 per cent focused on the climate."

"When you break down the items included in the package, its true modesty becomes clear. On passenger railway transport – an area in which the US lags far behind China and other advanced economies – the Jobs Plan proposes $10bn per annum over eight years."

"That, as the fine print states, should allow America to 'address Amtrak’s repair backlog; modernise the high-traffic Northeast Corridor; improve existing corridors and connect new city pairs.' It will no doubt create good jobs. What it will not do..."

"...is catapult the US into an age of high-speed rail travel to match that pioneered by Japan and China. The latter currently has 19,000 miles of high-speed track; America boasts 500 miles."

"It is indicative of the lack of transformative ambition," Tooze adds, "that the proposed spending on electric cars is larger than that targeted at public transport."

"Every day a wheezing fleet of diesel-powered yellow school buses carries 25 million children to school. ... Collectively, these pupils travel four billion miles every year... The Biden administration proudly announces it will electrify 20% by 2030. What of the rest?"

"The original Green New Deal vision had it right. Spend at the scale demanded by the climate emergency, take care of the funding when the macroeconomic balance dictates it."

"Most plans for a rapid energy transition suggest that getting to net zero by 2050 will involve investment of 5 to 7% of GDP per year."

"Only somewhere between a quarter and a third of that, 1 to 2%, needs to be additional investment—the rest has to be diverted urgently from further investments in fossil fuel systems."

"As Jörg Haas, of the German Green Party, likes to say, we need to floor the accelerator and slam on the brake at the same time, as you do when you’re hurling a high-speed rally car around a sharp corner. In terms of investment, the Biden plan gently squeezes the accelerator."

"How, then, to make sense of the modest dimensions of the Biden administration’s climate plan? One explanation is the assumption that America, and American business in particular, is headed in the right direction in any case."

"This is paradoxical given the dramatic rhetoric that the programme is dressed up in. But it perhaps expresses a rather deep conviction running through Biden’s team as a whole."

That is, "the situation may be dire, the Trump crisis was terrifying, but America is a fundamentally benign and dynamic society that God smiles on. Patriotic voluntarism is the basso continuo of the entire administration: 'There is nothing we can’t do when we do it together.'"

"If this is the Green New Deal recast in the image of BlackRock, it is a far cry from the bold vision of the original." (x/x)