Thread by @ClimateHuman

Here are some thoughts on the pros and cons of the new climate deal.🧵

Keep in mind that the main cause of climate breakdown is burning fossil fuel, so to stop the irreversible damage we need to ramp down the fossil fuel industry. The faster we do this, the more we'll save.

1. The deal earmarks $369 billion over 10 years for climate and energy measures. If passed, this will be far more than congress has ever done on climate. But... it will be the ONLY thing congress has ever done on climate, so that's not even a low bar, it's no bar at all.

For perspective, $369 billion over 10 years is a remarkably small amount to spend given the stakes: a livable planet. The US spends about $800 billion per year on the military. $36.9 billion per year is 4.6% of military spending...

Spending = priorities, and this is madness.

2. Here are some of the good things in the bill:
+ Paid for by taxes on corporations and the wealthy (very necessary)
+ Fee on methane leaks over federal limits, starting at $900/ton and rising to $1500/ton (not sure how enforcement is planned, or what the "federal limits" are)

3. More (with % of military budget, annualized, for reference):
+ $60 billion: incentives for domestic manufacturing for solar, batteries, heat pumps, etc. (0.75%)
+ $60 billion for projects benefiting disadvantaged communities that bear the brunt of impacts (0.75%)

4. More (again, with % of military budget)
+ $20 billion to cut ag emissions (0.25%)
+ $5 billion for forest conservation and restoration (0.06%)
+ Extends $7,500 credit for new EVs and adds a $4,000 credit for used EVs (manufactured domestically, with income limits, good)

5. More:
+ Credits for heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, induction stoves, and electrical service upgrades (nice) for low and mid income households
+ Extends the 30% rooftop solar credit (and adds in credits for home battery storage)

6. Some maybe ambiguous things:
+ $30 billion in tax credits for new wind, solar, other clean energy projects (0.38%)
+ $27 billion for R&D for clean tech

"Clean energy" is defined in the bill to include hydrogen and carbon capture, both things that help the fossil fuel industry

7. If the fossil fuel industry likes something, it's probably great for fossil fuels, which means it's probably terrible for our climate and collective future of life on Earth. Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon:
nytimes.com/2022/07/29/bus…

8. Now for the bad, and it's really bad:
+ The bill forces the Interior Department to lease at least 2 million acres of public lands and 60 million acres of offshore waters for oil & gas each year for a decade as a prerequisite for any new solar or wind energy installation

9. For some perspective, 600 million acres of offshore leasing amounts to 4x the size of the Gulf of Mexico outer continental shelf. And the fossil fuel industry has been leased 1 million acres of land on average since 2009. This doubles that! This is fossil fuel expansion

10. The solid and clear scientific consensus (IPCC WG3 report from April 4th) is that fossil fuel expansion and new fossil fuel infrastructure needs to end between 2020 and 2025 (science speak for "now") to preserve a decent chance of staying under 2°C of mean global heating.

11. Another bad thing: The bill came with a handshake agreement for a “suite of common-sense permitting reforms” that would make it easier to approve and build major energy projects. In other words... to make it easier to permit new fossil fuel projects, and harder to stop them.

12. These two bad things are strikingly bad, and most articles I've seen so far (including NYT) have downplayed them. Is a climate bill a climate bill if it doesn't do anything to rein in the main cause of climate breakdown - the fossil fuel industry? And helps expand it?

13. There's a lot of stuff here I love: credits for heat pumps, induction stoves, solar panels, EVs; support for low- and mid-income households; taxes on the rich; support for vulnerable communities; support for domestic clean tech manufacturing.

14. Sen. Schumer claims it would reduce US emissions by 40% by 2030. If this turns out to be true, then yes, that is better than nothing, and something we can build on. I'm a bit skeptical though. E.g. will the models include the effects of the fossil fuel leasing and permitting?

15. But it's not an emergency mode measure. Not even close. We need to get much more serious to stop the most serious threat humanity has ever faced. Look at the floods, fires, and heatwaves occurring right now! The longer we take to end the FF industry, the worse it all gets.

16. The good stuff in this bill is all good (although, arguably, too little, and too late). But the CENTRAL thing we need to do to stop the irreversible damage is to ramp down the fossil fuel industry. This bill instead comes with 2 major concessions that will serve to expand it

17. Political scientists will say this is what was politically possible. That may be true. But climate scientists should maybe have a say as well: and we will continually direct the conversation back to the laws of physics, which are NOT negotiable.

18. So what's next? Clearly we have a long way to go to shift society into climate #EmergencyMode. This bill shows we still need a billion climate activists. We're heading toward the huge main battle, the battle of our lives, to rapidly do what must be done: End fossil fuels.