Although many articles about the Paris climate deal spoke of the “end of the fossil fuel era,” the deal itself said no such thing. As Naomi Klein pointed out on Saturday, the words “fossil fuel,” “oil,” and “coal” are nowhere to be found in the text of the deal. You can check for yourself here.
Keeping warming below 1.5 °C would, however, certainly require keeping a significant amount of fossil fuel reserves in the ground, even though the goal was more aspirational than real. Back in April, a number of well-known scientists said that 75% of known reserves would have to be left in the ground to meet the 2 °C target. To meet the more stringent target of 1.5, an even greater share of fossil fuel reserves would have to be left in the ground.
And the US is already ignoring these implications and trying to boost its status as a petrostate.
In the omnibus bill negotiated by Democratic and Republican leadership and appropriators—and which Obama promised to sign, the parties agreed to lift the long-standing ban on crude oil exports. This has been a huge priority for Big Oil, as they expect to gain $22 billion in profits from it.
And when Big Oil wins, the climate loses. And when the climate loses, so do we.
Back in August, the Center for American Progress analyzed the environmental impact of lifting the ban. They found that it would lead to the equivalent GHG emissions of 135 coal-fired power plants and the loss of an area bigger than Arches National Park each year to oil rigs. And the 947 additional Exxon Valdez-sized oil tankers each year and 4,500 additional railcars each day would be environmental disasters waiting to happen.
Not only does this exacerbate climate change and degrade the land, water, and air, but by enriching the oil industry (and thus increasing its political power), it will make any future climate action more difficult. And it will mean that activists will have to spend time fighting new pipelines, new routes, and new export terminals rather than focusing on the constructive solutions we need to transition to a clean energy economy.
Many Democrats say that this is okay because they were also able to get the reauthorization of several renewable energy tax credits. But locking in new fossil fuel infrastructure needs to be viewed for what it is: a form of climate denialism. The time for moving past fossil fuels was yesterday.
Just over two months ago, when lifting the ban came up for a vote in the House, Democrats voted against it 153 to 26. Given that it’s widely believed that Pelosi and Hoyer promised Ryan the bulk of the votes for the omnibus bill, I’m going to guess that a lot of those 153 aren’t very principled or steadfast in their opposition to Big Oil.
The US, of course, isn’t the only country acting in bad faith after Paris. The House of Commons just voted 298 to 261 to allow fracking in national parks.