There’s disconnect between Biden’s climate talk, action
Joe Biden says climate change is an “existential threat to humanity” that
“is going to bake this planet.” Other political leaders attending the recent Glasgow climate summit made similar claims.
Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg is calling BS: “Blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.” She has a point. There has been a disconnect between Biden’s claims that climate change will kill us all — literally; that’s what “existential threat” means — and his actions.
While still at the Glasgow summit, Biden urged OPEC to increase oil production. More oil production would be bad for the climate, but lowering gasoline prices would be good for Biden’s approval rating.
What? He cares about his approval ratings when all of our lives are at stake?
All politicians care about their reelection chances, but there’s a larger point here, one first made by economist James Buchanan when he developed the theory of public choice.
Stripped of economic jargon, publicchoice theory is based on the simple observation that people in government act about the same as do people in business or people anywhere else: They mostly follow their self-interest.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Steve Jobs followed his self-interest to become a billionaire, and we ended up with some cool electronic gadgets. I’m sure Biden thinks that if he’s reelected he’ll have a chance to deliver on some nice government policies — free child care and that kind of thing.
But wait, how can being a hypocrite on climate change help him get reelected? Wouldn’t it be better to enact policies that will keep climate change from killing us, as he claims it will?
Nope, because of one of the little secrets of politics: The average person doesn’t care much about climate change. Oh, they say they do, but in practice they don’t — and Biden and other politicians know it.
Consider a Gallup poll from October, which asked “What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?” “Government/poor leadership” led the list with 21%.
The only other issues to score about 10% were the coronavirus and immigration. “Environment/pollution/ climate change” was the most important problem to only 3% of the public.
Or consider this: A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found 38% of the public believes that climate change is a “crisis,” while 38% think it’s “a major problem but not a crisis.”
If three-quarters of Americans believe climate change is at least a major problem, what are they willing to do about it?
Increase the federal excise tax on gasoline by 25 cents per gallon? Seventy-four percent said no. How about increasing the gas tax by only 10 cents per gallon? Sixty-four percent still said no. How about a $10-per-month tax on residential electric bills? Seventy-one percent said no.
What would it cost to enact the kind of policies that would make Thunberg happy and that Biden claims — some of the time — to want? Short answer: a hell of a lot more than $10 per month out of the pockets of the average household.
A recent report from engineers and scientists at Princeton estimated that, to convert by 2050 to relying 100% on renewables for electricity generation, would cost $28 trillion over 30 years. That’s about $7,800 per household per year.
A few observations on that estimate. First, it’s looking just at emissions from electricity generation, which account for only about 25% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Action against automobile, residential, commercial and agricultural emissions will add to the bill the average household will have to pay.
Cars and trucks account for 29% of emissions. Biden wants electric vehicles to make up 50% of all sales by 2030 and eventually 100%; currently, they’re only 3% of sales. Given how much more expensive electric vehicles are, it will take massive subsidies from taxpayers to coax consumers and business into hitting those targets.
Second, whatever policies the United States pursues will have only a small effect on climate change. In 2020, the United States was responsible for just 13.5% of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.
As the Glasgow summit demonstrated, getting other countries — particularly in the developing world — to sign on to expensive measures to reduce carbon emissions is somewhere between very difficult and impossible.
Finally, climate change won’t kill us all. The latest United Nations climate report finds that in 2100 climate change will reduce gross domestic product by between 2.5% and 5%. That result echoes a similar estimate in a report issued three years ago by the U.S. government.
Worth being concerned about? Sure. Worth forcing households to pay the very expensive tab for quickly cutting emissions?
Try asking them at the next election.