America is a rogue superpower on climate

A sinister rogue state poses a clear and present danger to humanity. The international community needs to stand up to this scofflaw nation. It’s not a country the U.S. foreign policy establishment demonizes, like Iran or Venezuela. It’s the United States itself.

The global scientific community is clear that our warming climate, driven primarily by burning fossil fuels, threatens the future of humanity. Yet many of the world’s major economies continue to increase their support for fossil fuel production. Trying to phase out fossil fuels while continuing to extract them is, to put it mildly, ineffective.

Now, in a new report with nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations Environment Program has joined the consensus. The report shows that many countries have fossil fuel production plans that are inconsistent with the goal of keeping the global average temperature increase to within 1.5 degrees Celsius, the safe upper limit.

Many governments share the blame for this. China is the world’s largest coal producer, and its planned phaseout of this production after a projected 2020 peak isn’t fast enough. Russia, the second largest natural gas producer, plans to keep growing its output for the foreseeable future.

But one country stands out as clearly the worst. The United States is the largest producer of oil and gas and the second largest producer of coal. And it plans to keep growing its oil and gas production. The International Energy Agency estimates America will account for 70% of the rise in global oil production and 75% of the rise in liquefied natural gas trade over the next five years.

Think about this. Our country prioritizes enriching its oil and gas industry over preserving the ecosystems upon which billions of people rely for their food, water and homes. This should fit any rational definition of a rogue state.

Poorer countries are paying the price for our recklessness. For instance, U.S. per capita emissions are 55 times greater than those of the South Pacific’s Solomon Islands. Yet Solomon Islanders are being forced to flee rising seas and abandon their ancestral ways of life.

It’s tempting to attribute America’s rogue behavior to President Donald Trump. He is pulling out of the Paris accord, censoring scientific research on climate change and overturning even the weak steps taken by the prior administration to address U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — on top of aggressively expanding fossil fuel extraction.

However, the roots of our recklessness run deeper. Case in point: President Barack Obama famously pursued an “all of the above” energy policy that expanded U.S. oil and gas production along with renewable energy, even as he publicly postured about the importance of acting on climate change. Under Obama, U.S. oil exports went from 44,000 to 591,000 barrels a day — an increase of more than 1200%.

Getting rid of Trump alone won’t cure U.S. irresponsibility. But this is far from a dispiriting conclusion. I prefer to think of it as another argument for why we need systemic change, rather than merely changing the face at the top.

Movements are underway all over America to build support for this transformation. But they could use help from other countries. Responsible world governments could publicly shame the U.S. government for its climate policies — a symbolic first step that, if necessary, could be followed by more substantive consequences such as sanctions.

The U.N. climate forum in Madrid this month was a lost opportunity to name and shame the rogue U.S. regime. Self-proclaimed climate leaders should not allow a climate rogue state like America to attend the next climate talks like a “normal” country.

Do world governments have the spine to take on a rogue superpower?