Despite American aversion to sweeping international environmental treaties and regulation, the American economy has slashed carbon emissions.
Don’t thank forward-thinking government action, though – the decrease has been driven by market efficiencies and fracking.
“As a nation, the United States reduced its carbon emissions by 2 percent from last year. Over the past 14 years, our carbon emissions are down more than 10 percent. On a per-unit-of-GDP basis, U.S. carbon emissions are down by closer to 20 percent,” Stephen Moore wrote for Real Clear Politics. “Even more stunning: We’ve reduced our carbon emissions more than virtually any other nation in the world, including most of Europe.”
Fracking, which has produced massive amounts of natural gas, has cut into America’s reliance on coal for electricity. As natural gas is cleaner, the switch has driven down emissions.
At one point, environmentalists embraced natural gas as a “bridge fuel to a low-carbon energy future,” according to Reason. Until renewable energy sources become more efficient and much cheaper, natural gas could reduce carbon emissions and the overall environmental impact of American energy use. That success has backfired, though. With natural gas so much cheaper than renewable energy, it’s regarded as a threat.
Fossil fuels still account for 67 percent of American electricity generation. Solar and wind energy barely cracked 5 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with nuclear and hydropower energy producing the most for renewable sources at 20 percent ant 6 percent, respectively.
The American economy is now the most energy efficient it’s ever been.
“Thanks to innovation, increases in energy efficiency, and advances in technology, the US is able to produce ever-increasing amounts of real output with continually decreasing amounts of energy usage per dollar of real GDP,” Mark J. Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan-Flint, wrote.
Some of that has come from wise legislation that prohibited harmful substances such as lead, but entrepreneurial drive has led the charge. “The technical revolution has given rise to an economic one,” Tim Fitzgerald wrote for the Property and Environment Research Center on the rise of fracking.
The reality of American energy consumption makes it difficult for government action to protect the environment without harming the economy. It can restrict activity, but spurring innovation efficiently is a much more difficult task. The profit motive has been successful in reshaping the reality of energy in America. The government needs to protect its citizens and their property from externalities and harm, but American innovators have an impressive ability to grow the economy while protecting the environment overall.
