| A weekly reckoning with life in a warming world—and the fight to save it |
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| As the U.S. infrastructure bill battle slogs on, European officials have unveiled a plan to cut the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030. The plan reportedly includes revising the current emissions trading system and expanding it into the shipping and aviation industries while establishing a similar market for road transport and buildings. It would also tax imports from countries without decarbonization policies. This tosses one heck of a ball into Biden’s court. |
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Our writers and editors are bringing you vital reporting, explanation, and analysis to understand the current climate crisis—but they need your help. Here’s a special summer offer to subscribe to The New Republic. |
—Heather Souvaine Horn, deputy editor |
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| These proposals are still hypothetical—they need to be approved by EU member states. But the point of the tariff is to keep the new generation of low-carbon European goods from being undercut by cheaper imports from countries that aren’t working to reduce emissions. A draft leaked last month suggested the policy could target, among other things, steel imports. While China is by far the world’s top steel exporter, the United States is still in the top five. Despite talking a big game on the campaign trail, Biden hasn’t moved forward with ambitious climate policy so far. Most of the meager climate provisions originally included in the White House’s signature infrastructure package have been tossed out or weakened during negotiations with congressional Republicans. There’s plenty to debate and criticize about Europe’s latest slate of proposals—among other things, it might make fuel or housing more expensive for those with less to spend, which could lead to backlash. (Critics have pointed to the 2018 “yellow vest” protests in France, which were responding in part to gas tax hikes.) But the bottom line from the American perspective is this: In addition to being shown up by Europe on emissions reductions, the U.S. may take a trade hit and see its exports suffer. As Politico’s Zack Colman explained, this tariff policy “will leave Biden with a grim set of options. The White House could take a page from Trump’s trade playbook and impose its own retaliatory tariffs, or it could seek to challenge the EU’s move by resurrecting the World Trade Organization’s hobbled dispute resolution body, an option sharply opposed by U.S. climate policy advocates.” What a mess. Almost all of it could have been avoided with ambitious American climate policy, paired with international coordination.
—Heather Souvaine Horn, deputy editor |
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That’s how much land wildfires have burned nationwide, as of the beginning of this week—the most for this point in the summer in a decade. |
(Make that slightly morbid news.) An uptick in cremations is freeing up what might otherwise have been cemetery space for solar farms. |
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Elsewhere in the Ecosystem |
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Emily Atkin’s Monday issue of her newsletter, HEATED, contains a powerful meditation on urgency, action, and the importance of not giving in to frustration and despair. |
Some people may read this and believe it is pointless. That we are too late. That none of it matters. The fossil fuel industry knows this is not true. Their fear of a determined, pissed off public is why they promoted campaigns of climate denial and “individual responsibility” in the first place. They knew if people were unsure about the problem, they’d waste time fighting about it instead of mobilizing to fix it. They knew if people were confused about the solution, they’d waste time trying to change themselves and each other instead of the system. However worse the climate crisis gets now depends on how quickly society transforms. How quickly society transforms depends on how many people demand it. The most harmful lie being spread about climate change today is not that it is fake. It’s that nothing you can do can help save the world. |
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