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NOT THE CZAR: John Kerry is not a “climate czar” in the way imagined as a manager of Joe Biden’s domestic climate policies. Biden is expected to name a White House climate director later, a second position at the same level of Kerry who would coordinate policies implemented by the various federal agencies.
Kerry’s role as the special presidential envoy for climate will involve him being an international climate diplomat who will elevate the issue into Biden’s foreign and national security policy with cabinet-level authority. His position tells us little about the specific climate policies Biden would pursue at home — for example, if the administration would pursue a carbon tax or clean electricity mandate.
“I read this as a globally-focused role,” Nat Keohane, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, told Josh. “It’d be hard to think of a better person for this role or a clearer signal that the U.S. will reengage on climate globally and make it a central aspect of all parts of foreign policy and national security policy.”
Kerry’s role: It’s a fitting position for Kerry, who oversaw the negotiations for the Paris agreement. Biden will now charge Kerry with convincing governments to raise their contributions to the Paris agreement, and developing a new stricter U.S. target for cutting emissions out to 2030 ahead of the next U.N. climate talks in Glasgow.
Biden has said he’d also convene a global “climate summit” in his first 100 days, with Kerry now expected to play a major role.
Building bridges with young activists: Liberals also respect Kerry’s efforts in recent months to partner with young climate activists to learn how to speak their language about the urgency of the problem. He co-chaired the climate component of the task force Biden created with Bernie Sanders during the campaign, where he earned respect from leaders of the Sunrise Movement.
“Kerry isn’t the cutting edge of the climate movement, but he’s a trusted hand who’s shown a commitment to listening and learning,” Collin Rees, senior campaigner for Oil Change U.S., told Josh. “He’s got the background to hit the ground running, and he’s someone we can work with and continue to push for increased ambition.”
What’s next: Now, progressives are eying how Biden fills out his domestic climate team, including the heads of EPA, DOE, and Interior, and whether he continues his trend so far of embedding climate change into all aspects of governmental leadership (see more on that below).
“What good is it to engage in diplomacy abroad if we’re not doing everything we can at home?” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
YELLEN READY TO TACKLE CLIMATE AT TREASURY: In Janet Yellen, Biden is bringing on board someone who has been sounding the alarm on climate change for many decades and will be ready to wield the Treasury Department’s tools to address it.
Yellen, who if confirmed would be the first woman to lead the agency, served as chief of the Council of Economic Advisors during the Clinton administration and as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve during the Obama administration. In both roles, she raised concerns about financial risks from climate change and advocated for market-based policies to curb emissions. She has also long rejected the notion that policies to reduce emissions would be too costly.
“Costs depend critically on how emission reduction policies are implemented,” Yellen told senators back in 1997. “It boils down to this: if we do it dumb, it could cost a lot, but if we do it smart, it will cost much less and indeed could produce net benefits in the long run.”
Like Kerry, Yellen is someone liberal environmentalists feel they can work with. Yellen is “a leader who understands the urgent need to address the climate crisis and to mobilize the full power of the federal government to rescue our economy and climate,” said Jamal Raad, campaign director for Evergreen Action, a climate group founded by alums of the presidential campaign of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
Raad added they’re hoping to see the Treasury Department under Biden “disentangle” the financial system from fossil fuel investments.
Carbon tax backer: Yellen is likely to lose some points with liberal environmentalists, though, for her support of a carbon tax as the primary means of curbing emissions.
She is a founding member of the Climate Leadership Council, which promotes a carbon tax and dividend approach spearheaded by former Republican secretaries of State. Environmentalists have slammed that approach, in part because it is backed by major oil companies including ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell who see it as an alternative to stricter emissions regulations.
Yellen, though, said last month she sees a potential path for bipartisan support for a carbon tax under a Biden administration.
“I do see Republican support, and not only Democrat support, for an approach that would involve a carbon tax with redistribution,” she told Reuters. “It’s not politically impossible.”
SWITCHING GEARS: With President Trump on his way out, General Motors is dropping support for his administration battle with California over its ability to set its own tailpipe greenhouse gas limits, and the automaker isn’t exactly hiding the fact that it’s an attempt to win favor with the Biden team.
“We are confident that the Biden Administration, California, and the U.S. auto industry, which supports 10.3 million jobs, can collaboratively find the pathway that will deliver an all-electric future,” General Motors CEO Mary Barra wrote in a letter to the heads of nearly a dozen environmental groups yesterday.
She told the groups General Motors would “immediately” withdraw from litigation where it was supporting the Trump administration’s elimination of California’s waiver. Barra’s letter signals the automaker thinks it’s likely the Biden administration will strike a deal with California on stricter fuel economy standards.
Biden is already counting the automaker’s move as a win: In a statement late yesterday, Biden described the move as a “choice to work with the Biden-Harris Administration and California.” The decision “reinforces how shortsighted the Trump Administration’s efforts to erode American ingenuity and America’s defenses against the climate threat truly are,” he added.
Remember that Biden met with Barra, along with United Auto Workers President Rory Gamble and other industry and labor leaders, just last week. Biden said they talked about climate change “a lot,” including “the need to own the electric vehicle market.”
CAN WE GET MUCH HIGHER? Oil prices are up this morning to the highest level since March over positive vaccine developments and as Biden was permitted to begin the formal transition.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, reached $47 per barrel while WTI rose to $44 per barrel.
Stay tuned for OPEC+ decision: We’ll know whether the increase is sustainable when OPEC+ meets next week to discuss whether to stick with an easing of production cuts beginning next year.
Dan Eberhart, CEO of oil services company Canary, told Josh that the market has already priced in the expectation that OPEC+ extends the current 7.7 million barrels per day of production cuts for another three months.
“While vaccine news has dramatically improved oil market sentiment, demand remains a key uncertainty in the struggle to keep the market balanced,” Eberhart said. “OPEC+ must maintain production limits or oil prices will plummet.”
SENSING A THEME HERE: Biden discussed cooperating with European allies on combating climate change in discussions yesterday with the leaders of the European Commission, European Council, and NATO.
We’re curious if Biden’s interest in “revitalizing” the U.S.-EU relationship, as he put it in his call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, will head off potential tensions if the EU proceeds with a carbon border adjustment as currently planned beginning in 2023.
It’s also worth noting that Biden discussed combating climate change yesterday with King Adullah of Jordan, his first chat with an Arab leader since becoming president-elect.
BIDEN WILL RESTORE EPA TO PRE-TRUMP, BUSH EPA CHIEF SAYS: “It’s not going to be hard for him to show the commitment that he has” to the environment and climate change, which will help “alleviate a lot of the tension” that’s been at the EPA during the Trump administration, said Christine Todd Whitman, who ran the EPA during George W. Bush’s first term, of Biden.
Biden is expected to pursue the most aggressive climate change agenda of any president, in part through new regulations at the EPA. Whitman said Biden can take several steps immediately to start getting the EPA back on track, including rejoining the Paris climate agreement, peeling back Trump-era proposals that haven’t been finalized, and declining to defend Trump rollbacks in court.
“There’s quite a lot they can do right from the get-go, and I look forward to them doing it,” Whitman, who endorsed Biden during the campaign, told Abby in an interview.
Even so, Whitman said Biden will face challenges in staffing up the agency, given how much the EPA shrunk in size during the Trump administration. The White House obstructing the transition process doesn’t help, either, she added.
More in Abby’s story in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.
CORONAVIRUS HASN’T CURBED GLOBAL CARBON CONCENTRATIONS: Global greenhouse gas concentrations are still at record levels, even with the large yearly emissions declines this year due to coronavirus lockdowns, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
The WMO, in a report yesterday, said carbon dioxide levels have continued to grow in 2020. The coronavirus pandemic prompted short-term cuts in emissions, but because carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries, it hasn’t affected overall concentrations, the WMO said. The WMO report estimates the world saw emissions cuts between 4.2% and 7.5% this year due to the pandemic.
“The lockdown-related fall in emissions is just a tiny blip on the long-term graph. We need a sustained flattening of the curve,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. “The COVID-19 pandemic is not a solution for climate change.”
BLOCKING TRANSITION RISKS PUBLIC HEALTH, CARPER SAYS: Failing to allow the Biden administration a timely transition “risks the health and safety of millions of Americans as the nation grapples with a pandemic that continues to grow more severe every week,” Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee, wrote in a letter to General Services Administration head Emily Murphy yesterday.
Carper raised specific concerns that the Biden team isn’t being given access to information at the EPA that it needs to be able to prepare to fight COVID-19 and environmental hazards. That includes information about how air pollution exposure affects COVID-19 risk, how the EPA is evaluating disinfectants to combat the virus, and how the EPA is managing cleanups at contaminated sites under the Superfund program.
Carper’s concerns could begin to be alleviated, however. Murphy, late yesterday, sent a letter to Biden saying the formal presidential transition process can begin Monday.
The Rundown
Los Angeles Times The fossil fuel industry wants you to believe it’s good for people of color
Roll Call Neal eyes massive coronavirus relief, climate and infrastructure package
Reuters Interior Department contender says Biden would target Trump Arctic drilling push on first day
Vice Secret Amazon reports expose the company’s surveillance of labor and environmental groups
Reuters EU, UN-led pact commits oil and gas firms to tackle methane emissions
Calendar
TUESDAY | NOV. 24
The House and Senate are out.
