The global consequences of climate change are engaged in one of the most extreme love/hate relationships with energy in all its forms including but not limited to what kind or energy is available, where it comes from, and how it might be exchanged for something safer, renewable, and sustainable for the benefit of all.
That was the topic of the recent webinar hosted virtually by the University of Houston Law Center in November and sponsored by the Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Center. Moderators were Dr. Qaraman Hasan, EENR research scholar, and Tracy Hester, co-director of EENR.
Daniel Farber, the Sho Sato professor of law and faculty director for the Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law was the featured speaker for the webinar.
Citing the quickly emergent need for a new energy system in a concerted response to the continuous climate changes felt domestically and globally, Farber postulates the current level of carbon emissions and the potential for their decline in years forward does not promise – much less guarantee – that fossil fuels will be willingly discarded and happily replaced by the consumer public. The replacement(s) may prove to be a hard sell, especially to consumers still committed to known energy resources versus embracing new or unfamiliar substitutes.
“The basic idea is to think about the goals that we’re trying to achieve in terms of what kind of energy system, what kind of environmental law do we have down the road, rather than focusing so heavily on the world of fossil fuels that we’re trying to leave behind or at least limit in many ways,” Farber said as he opened his presentation.
“I think one way of putting this in perspective is to start with four big events that happened in a little over a year. Beginning in November 2021, the bipartisan infrastructure law invested about $150 billion to reduce transportation emissions. This is part of a much larger bill that includes, of course, a lot of money for things like bridges and road repair.
“In June 20, the following year the Supreme Court struck down Obama’s Clean Power Plan. And then what, about six weeks after that, the Senate passed the Chips and Science Act, which is, of course, primarily about semiconductors and related issues like AI but also embedded billions in
clean energy research and development. On August 16, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided $369 billion in new climate funding.
“So part of what I want to ask is where does all this leave us and what could it teach us about the directions for our future?”
Farber continued, “I want to argue in favor of reframing climate policy with the energy transition front and center, which means thinking a lot about how we’re building a new energy system as well as how we’re leaving the old one.
“I’ll also look at what we can expect under President Trump’s second term which obviously is going to really decisively influence a lot of what happens at the national level over the next four years.
“Industrial policy is sort of a deliberate government effort to grow, begin and grow new industries such as clean energy in the US, and the three laws that I’ve already mentioned really are best seen as part of an industrial policy initiative. I say the infrastructure law had provisions to decarbonize or reduce carbon at least from transportation. (There should be) a lot of money for public transit, ferries, buses, and rail, including some for electrifying those, plus better safety for walkers and bikes to try to get people out of their cars, and money for charging stations, which has gotten off to a very slow start, but we’ll see if they succeed in getting more money out the door in the next couple of months, and money for energy storage.
“Then also very importantly, $15 billion for grid resilience, including money for including transmission in the form of loans and grants. That’s important because even if the sun isn’t shining in one place, it may be shining a few hundred miles down the road. It’s really important to be able to move power around pretty easily. And for that, we need more transmission.”
In his conclusion, Farber said, “It’s not just to get rid of the environmental problems of the current energy system. It’s how to have an energy system that will be newer and better in the future. I think a lot of our focus has to be on that, building the new energy system is going to be difficult. There are a lot of challenges. It’s going to take a lot of energy. And frankly, we’re not going to phase out the old system unless we’ve got something to replace it with. Some people think people could live much simpler lives. They could stop using all this power and driving everywhere, et cetera, et cetera. I don’t think that’s realistic for large numbers and some people,
yeah, maybe, but I don’t think society as a whole is going to embrace that. We’re going to need energy.
The event was the first of an EENR lecture series for the 2024-25 academic year.
“This series aims to foster critical discussion and provide a platform for leading voices on some of the most pressing issues of our time, particularly those at the intersection of law policy and environmental stewardship. Today marks the beginning of what we hope will be engaging transformative series.
“The tone of this topic is both timely and pivotal, which is the future of our climate policy shifting from emission regulation to energy transition,” Hasan explained.
Original source can be found here.