While watching the Democratic National Convention last week, I was reminded about the importance and urgency of climate change and how that message hasn't changed ever since I first heard it. Over the past few decades, recorded temperatures around the world have continued to rise, providing concrete evidence that global warming is conclusively happening [1], and the damage isn't theoretical. Today, California is dealing with some of the worst recorded fires in history, and most residents are starting to think that they will only get worse in the coming years.

Despite the world's slow descent into a global catastrophe, a large portion of politicians in the US not only push back on legislation to combat global warming but actively work to support the existing petroleum, natural gas, and coal industries. I understand there are a lot of complications here with many Americans working in these industries and depending on them for their livelihoods, but the fact that there is such staunch resistance to combating climate change means that the current (and historical) branding hasn't been working when it comes to rallying everyone around a common goal.

Why not reframe the problem as one about economic security and job creation?

Addressing climate change in the US can largely be addressed by reducing the nation's need for fuels that release more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, namely petroleum, coal, and natural gas. While the US is a net exporter of coal and natural gas, the US still imports a large portion of petroleum and related fuels [3]. In 2019 alone, the US imported over 3.3 billion barrels of crude oil compared to 2.5 to 3 billion barrels produced domestically. At an average 2019 closing price of $64 a barrel for international crude oil, we can estimate that approximately $211 billion flowed out from the US to international suppliers.

The European Union has a slightly different story. Without the same natural resources as the US, the EU is dependent on Russia for 30% of imported crude oil, 40% of imported natural gas, and 42% of solid fuel (e.g. coal) [4]. Iraq, Colombia, the United States, and Saudi Arabia are also major providers for the EU, but none come close to Russia's dominant portion as the primary energy provider for the EU.

Putting aside concerns for environmental health and sustainable energy sources for a moment, this paints a pretty bleak picture of international relations between the EU and Russia. Recently, we have seen continued friction between the two with the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. Even if the EU threatens Russia with further sanctions, the numbers indicate that Russia could do some serious economic damage to the EU just by increasing prices of its energy exports in the short term. Any leader in the EU will have to seriously weigh how strongly Russia could retaliate when considering action against a country they depend on so heavily. Having one or even a small number of countries in charge of crucial imports is a dangerous dependency for any country.

Now, the US doesn't have the same reliance on an adversarial country as the EU does, but the idea of being dependent on foreign countries is something that should resonate with lawmakers who haven't been traditionally motivated by protecting the environment or acknowledging global warming.

Although reframing funding for alternative energy sources from an environmental issue to an international policy one might work as a high level pitch, as always, the actual implementation is a bit more complicated. 70% of petroleum in the US powers transportation while only 24% is used for industrial purposes [2]. Reducing the transportation industry's dependence on petroleum is a fairly complex matter since most consumers aren't likely to immediately replace their cars, but shifting industrial manufacturing might be more feasible. The government could try to offer subsidies to both build alternative energy plants and to incentivize industrial manufacturers to switch over to use the new energy sources. If nothing changed outside of shifting energy sources for industrial plants to renewable energy sources, the US could decrease the amount of imported petroleum by over 50%, keeping an additional $96 billion within the US economy instead of flowing out to other countries.

This approach has a few things going for it that should be appealing for policymakers on both sides of the aisle:

1. Any subsidies would be regained with a reduction in US spend on imported goods
2. Opening new clean energy plants would create a number of jobs for Americans at a time when many are struggling with unemployment
3. Existing American jobs wouldn’t be impacted

This is all very hand-wavy, but the point is that policymakers and politicians don't need to use the same branding to address topics that their predecessors have been using for decades. As we witness an age of highly partisan politics with votes usually split by party lines, it might make sense to revisit how we talk about issues that should be bipartisan. By reframing issues like climate change to better align incentives across different political groups, we might be able to make progress after so many deadlocks.

Sources

[1] 2017 Climate Science Special Report. U.S. Global Change Research Program. https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/executive-summary/

[2] US Energy Facts. U.S. Energy Information Administration. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

[3] U.S. Imports by Country of Origin. U.S. Energy Information Administration. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_a.htm

[4] Shedding light on energy in the EU. Eurostat. (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-2c.html)