The Washington Examiner recently published an opinion article from the Institute for Policy Innovation that cites a brief I authored to make the overly optimistic point that climate pollutants in the United States “will trend downward for years to come.”
My colleagues and I at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions are concerned with this portrayal. It is certainly true that we projected emissions in 2025 could fall 14% to 18% below 2005 levels and that switching from coal to gas power generation is partly responsible. However, this misses at least two key points.
First, U.S. Energy Department modeling shows emission reductions will soon level off in the absence of strong new policies. In other words, coal-to-gas switching is a benefit that will soon run out as coal generation becomes rarer. So we must pursue technology solutions like carbon capture and advanced nuclear and dramatically escalate wind and solar deployment — as well as policy solutions in other sectors and economy-wide carbon pricing.
Second, while we’ve made significant gains, it is a grave error to conclude that modest emission reductions mean that we are on track to avert the damaging and economically costly effects accompanying global average temperature rise and supercharged storms.
Reductions are good, but modest reductions are not going to cut it. Europe is already about 23% below 1990 emission levels, but the U.S. is still 6% above its 1990 emission levels. The goal is net zero emissions by midcentury, and by that measure, we are falling tragically short. As the largest cumulative emitter over time, the U.S. bears a significant part of the responsibility for the problem — and for the solutions.
Doug Vine is a senior energy fellow at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
