‘Climate Agenda Is Ending the American Dream,’ Heritage Chief Says

After challenging the elite World Economic Forum President of the Heritage Foundation in Davos, Switzerland, in January Kevin Roberts This week, New York Times reporter David Gelles interviewed him on climate and energy.

Roberts’ message: Environmentalists’ obsession with radical climate policies is leaving America’s workers and the global poor behind.

“The climate agenda is coming to an end american dreamRoberts told Gelles. The left’s war on affordable, reliable energy sources is an attack on the American Dream, the foundation that allows hard-working people to get ahead and build a future for their families.

The American dream is the envy of the world. Emerging economies cannot achieve their own dreams if they are forced or bribed by the West to abandon an economic order. fossil fuel Economy and use of renewable energy.

The world faces a growing energy crisis with serious economic, humanitarian and security consequences. This is the direct result of US climate policies that aim to eliminate fossil fuel production while claiming to “save” the world. climate.

Inflation Reduction Act and Energy Poverty

These policies are failing and pushing everyone on all continents into energy poverty. The Inflation Reduction Act provides incentives for renewable energy and electric vehicles, which increases electricity and transportation prices. In states with a higher share of renewable energy, electricity prices are higher and electric vehicles are more expensive than other cars. Americans may not be able to name the Inflation Reduction Act, Roberts said, “but they’re certainly feeling its effects.”

Environmentalists say if America eliminates fossil fuels, the world will follow, but that hasn’t happened. While U.S. emissions have decreased slightly, global emissions have increased; especially in China, where more than 300 new coal plants are planned and a new plant is being built every week.

People around the world are looking to switch to energy-intensive products and services such as heating, air conditioning, washing machines, hot and high-pressure showers, and personal vehicles.

The United States emits only one-seventh of the world’s CO2. As Roberts explains, America eliminating all fossil fuels would have “an almost immeasurable impact” on global temperatures because Western emissions account for a small fraction of the total.

Americans were promised that if fossil fuels were phased out, they would be seamlessly replaced by cheaper wind and solar power. But this did not happen.

While America added just 4 gigawatts of grid-scale battery storage last year, a serious transition to net zero will require at least 200 gigawatts. Instead, electricity prices are rising in states with renewable portfolio standards.

“We’ve taken the idea of ​​the energy transition and accelerated it in such an artificial way that it’s hurting people,” Roberts said.

At the Mercy of Hostile Regimes

The North American energy platform makes America a net energy exporter without the need to depend on hostile foreign regimes for oil. While the Biden-Harris administration was shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, President Joe Biden was begging for oil from hostile regimes like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

The Biden-Harris administration has deliberately left Europe at the mercy of Russia by pausing even new clean natural gas exports.

While ordinary Americans face rising energy costs and unreliable grids due to misguided climate policies, companies like Microsoft and Amazon are ensuring they have access to stable, affordable energy like nuclear power.

These companies can enter into purchasing agreements to protect their own energy needs while financing environmental causes that advocate limited access to affordable and reliable energy sources for the rest of the country.

Roberts noted that climate danger is decreasing, not increasing. “There has actually been a 98% reduction in climate-related deaths over the last century,” he said.

Generators fired by fossil fuels enable the creation of sturdy home cement and steel foundations and hurricane-proof poles for power distribution cables. Fossil fuels power irrigation, air conditioning, heating, storm warning systems and durable buildings, allowing people to better cope with climate risks in better-off parts of the world.

The war on fossil fuels jeopardizes this mastery and puts lives at risk.

Condemning the Third World to Permanent Poverty

Women and girls around the world are having a mind-blowing time, according to UNICEF 200 million hours per day I’m walking to collect water. HE load can be lifted has access to electricity to pump water to where it is needed. Without electricity, life-giving water is a source of danger in itself. More than 500,000 people die every year from preventable diseases caused by dirty water.

Some radical environmentalists are pleased that women and girls in the Third World (such as those in Mutoko, Zimbabwe) are forced to walk with buckets to shared water sources due to the lack of affordable energy from fossil fuels. (Hakan Nural/Anadolu/Getty Images)

These unnecessary deaths, almost unheard of in the developed world, could be prevented by clean water made possible by access to electricity.

Current climate policy is hostile to fossil fuels and ignores their enormous benefits. These policies catastrophize climate risks that have not yet occurred, while ignoring our proven ability to adapt to climate changes.

The only rational way to meet climate challenges is through energy abundance, climate sovereignty and free market innovation. America’s real impact on global emissions will come from superior energy alternatives, such as popular, plug-free hybrid cars that charge the battery through the operation of its brake and engine systems, not by attacking fossil fuels.

“The free market and private citizens are the best protectionists,” Roberts said in the interview.

Artificial Energy Scarcity

Roberts said the Biden-Harris administration is not only being dishonest on the climate agenda, but is also issuing policies that will crush the middle class with hidden costs. Gas taxes, electric vehicle mandates, and crippling EPA regulations are driving up energy prices and creating an artificial energy shortage.

The Biden-Harris administration’s final EPA power plant rules, if implemented, would cause most coal-fired power plants and some natural gas-fired power plants to close by 2032, leading to a 30% electricity deficit by 2032.

Inflation Reduction Act subsidies are distorting the energy market, forcing conventional power plants to sit idle throughout the day while subsidized solar floods the grid. Subsidies for renewable resources discourage investment in traditional fuels such as natural gas. Inflation Reduction Act subsidies will eliminate millions of jobs and cost every American family at least $5,000 a year. Ford, Stellantis and GM are laying off auto workers.

Politics is full of surprises, but energy security should not be one of them. Energy security is national security. America cannot compete internationally if our domestic development is stifled by the hostility to people of the “green energy” movement.

Environmentalists who want to block mineral mining projects needed for green energy in Minnesota are the same ones who are demanding more solar panels and electric vehicles.

No purchases from China

The Biden-Harris administration’s policies prevent domestic mining of critical minerals in the United States and leave the United States at the mercy of China for the materials needed to build renewable energy technologies. China is buying mines in Africa and Latin America for minerals critical to its electric vehicles and batteries.

China has more than 1,000 coal-fired power plants, while the United States has fewer than 250, and China has made clear that it will not sacrifice its economy for the sake of Western climate goals. Simply put by Roberts: “We benefit the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of ordinary Americans.”

By moving energy-intensive production abroad, the West is hollowing out the manufacturing sector and increasing global emissions rather than reducing them.

The Inflation Reduction Act would cost Americans a trillion dollars in tax incentives and loans and support industries that have no chance of competing internationally. All these interventions ignore the interests of American citizens.

As Roberts told Gelles of The New York Times, “The Biden-Harris administration made a huge mistake by imposing the will of the elite on the American people.” States with more renewable energy have higher-priced electricity, without even accounting for the environmental costs of mining for batteries and the devastating human toll of child and slave labor in the Third World.

False Scientific ‘Consensus’

Environmentalists also argue that there is a false consensus among scientists about the dire effects of climate change. Contrary to his claims, Roberts said, “The government does not have a monopoly on scientific knowledge.” In reality, the rise in global temperatures is lower than almost all predicted climate change models.

Even worst-case scenarios are not enough to justify decarbonization. The essence of the scientific spirit is skepticism. Reporters who are not skeptical are not doing their job.

Heritage Foundation experts used the government’s own models to show that eliminating U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would reduce global temperatures by less than 0.23°C; This is an imperceptible change. Roberts said: “As political conservatives, we are also environmental protectionists… The United States has the cleanest air and water in the world.”

The American dream is powered by energy abundance. Any policy that creates energy scarcity is doomed to failure. Energy is the basis of human development, and fossil fuels have enabled this.

We must defend America’s energy independence and push for realistic solutions to future climate challenges. Advocates of expensive climate agendas cannot be allowed to destroy America’s future.