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    Pace of Climate Change Sends Economists Back to Drawing Board

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    Economists have been examining the impact of climate change for almost as long as it’s been known to science.In the 1970s, the Yale economist William Nordhaus began constructing a model meant to gauge the effect of warming on economic growth. The work, first published in 1992, gave rise to a field of scholarship assessing the cost to society of each ton of emitted carbon offset by the benefits of cheap power — and thus how much it was worth paying to avert it.Dr. Nordhaus became a leading voice for a nationwide carbon tax that would discourage the use of fossil fuels and propel a transition toward more sustainable forms of energy. It remained the preferred choice of economists and business interests for decades. And in 2018, Dr. Nordhaus was honored with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.But as President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act with its $392 billion in climate-related subsidies, one thing became very clear: The nation’s biggest initiative to address climate change is built on a different foundation from the one Dr. Nordhaus proposed.Rather than imposing a tax, the legislation offers tax credits, loans and grants — technology-specific carrots that have historically been seen as less efficient than the stick of penalizing carbon emissions more broadly.The outcome reflects a larger trend in public policy, one that is prompting economists to ponder why the profession was so focused on a solution that ultimately went nowhere in Congress — and how economists could be more useful as the damage from extreme weather mounts.A central shift in thinking, many say, is that climate change has moved faster than foreseen, and in less predictable ways, raising the urgency of government intervention. In addition, technologies like solar panels and batteries are cheap and abundant enough to enable a fuller shift away from fossil fuels, rather than slightly decreasing their use.Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University, worked on developing carbon pricing methods at the Department of Energy. He thinks the relentless focus on prices, with little attention paid to direct investments, lasted too long.“There was an idealization and simplification of the problem that started in the economics literature,” Dr. Kopp said. “And things that start out in the economics literature have half-lives in the applied policy world that are longer than the time period during which they’re the frontier of the field.”Carbon taxes and emissions trading systems have been instituted in many places, such as Denmark and California. But a federal measure in the United States, setting a cap on carbon emissions and letting companies trade their allotments, failed in 2010.What’s in the Inflation Reduction ActCard 1 of 8What’s in the Inflation Reduction ActA substantive legislation. More

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    Biden to Pause New Solar Tariffs as White House Aims to Boost Adoption

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    WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Monday announced a two-year pause on imposing any new tariffs on the solar industry, a decision that follows an outcry from importers who have complained the levies are threatening broader adoption of solar energy in the United States.The move is a victory for domestic solar installers, who said the tariffs would put at risk the Biden administration’s goal of significantly cutting carbon emissions by the end of the decade by reducing the flow of products into the United States. But it goes against the wishes of some American solar manufacturers and their defenders, who have been pushing the administration to erect tougher barriers on cheap imports to help revive the domestic industry.It was the latest example of President Biden’s being caught between competing impulses when it comes to trying to steer the United States away from planet-warming fossil fuels, as he has pledged to do. By limiting tariffs, Mr. Biden will ensure a sufficient and cheap supply of solar panels at a time of high inflation and attempt to put stalled solar projects back on track. But the decision will postpone other White House efforts that might have punished Chinese companies for trade violations and lessened Beijing’s role in global supply chains.To counteract complaints by the domestic solar industry, the administration said that Mr. Biden would attempt to speed U.S. manufacturing of solar components, including by invoking the authorities of the Defense Production Act, which gives the president expanded powers and funding to direct the activities of private businesses.The prospect of additional tariffs stemmed from an ongoing investigation by the Commerce Department, which is looking into whether Chinese solar firms — which are already subject to tariffs — tried to get around those levies by moving their operations out of China and into Southeast Asia.Auxin Solar, a small manufacturer of solar panels based in California, had requested the inquiry, which is examining imports from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia.In 2020, 89 percent of the solar modules used in the United States were imported, with Southeast Asian countries accounting for the bulk of the shipments.If the Commerce Department determines that the factories were set up to circumvent U.S. tariffs, the administration could retroactively impose tariffs on shipments to the United States. But under the tariff “pause” that Mr. Biden ordered on Monday, such levies could not be imposed for the next two years.The decision is the latest turn in a long game of whack-a-mole the U.S. government has played against low-priced imports in the solar industry.While U.S. companies were some of the first to introduce solar technology, China came to dominate global solar manufacturing in recent decades by subsidizing production and creating a vibrant domestic market for solar installation. In 2011, the United States imposed duties on Chinese products to counteract subsidies and unfairly low prices. U.S. installers then started buying more products from Taiwan, but in 2015 the United States imposed duties on Taiwan as well.Trade experts said that pausing the tariffs could undercut trade laws aimed at protecting American workers by allowing companies in China to continue flooding the United States with cheap imports.Auxin Solar, a California manufacturer of solar panels.Anastasiia Sapon for The New York TimesMamun Rashid, chief executive of Auxin Solar.Anastasiia Sapon for The New York TimesOn Monday, Auxin’s chief executive, Mamun Rashid, said President Biden was interfering with the investigation.“By taking this unprecedented — and potentially illegal — action, he has opened the door wide for Chinese-funded special interests to defeat the fair application of U.S. trade law,” Mr. Rashid said in a statement.To pause the tariffs, a Biden administration official said the administration was invoking a section of the 1930 Tariff Act, which allows the president to suspend certain import duties to address an emergency. Commerce Department officials said their investigation would continue and that any tariffs that resulted from their findings would begin after the 24-month pause expired.“The president’s emergency declaration ensures America’s families have access to reliable and clean electricity while also ensuring we have the ability to hold our trading partners accountable to their commitments,” Gina Raimondo, the Commerce secretary, said in a release.The possibility of tariffs has touched off an ugly battle in recent months over the future of the U.S. solar industry.American solar companies have said that the prospect of more — and retroactive — tariffs was already having a chilling effect on imports. Groups such as the Solar Energy Industries Association, whose members include several Chinese manufacturers with U.S. operations, have been lobbying the White House against the tariffs and on Monday welcomed news that the administration would pause any new levies.“Today’s actions protect existing solar jobs, will lead to increased employment in the solar industry and foster a robust solar manufacturing base here at home,” Abigail Ross Hopper, the president and chief executive of S.E.I.A., said in an emailed statement.“During the two-year tariff suspension window,” she said, “the U.S. solar industry can return to rapid deployment while the Defense Production Act helps grow American solar manufacturing.”Companies that rely on imported products — and U.S. officials who are prioritizing the transition to solar energy — have been complaining that the Commerce Department inquiry has injected uncertainty into future pricing for the solar market, slowing the transition away from fossil fuels. NextEra Energy, one of the largest renewable energy companies in the country, had said it expected to delay the installation of between two and three gigawatts worth of solar and storage construction — enough to power more than a million homes.“The last couple of months we have had to pause all construction efforts,” said Scott Buckley, president of Green Lantern Solar, a solar installer based in Vermont. Mr. Buckley said his company had been forced to put about 10 projects on hold, which would have resulted in the installation of about 50 acres of solar panels.Mr. Buckley said there was no easy solution to the country’s reliance on imported products in the short term and that the White House’s actions on Monday would allow companies like his to resume installations this year.“This is a get back to work order,” he said. “That’s the way I think about it. Let’s clear the logjams.”Solar panels made in China. Major industry groups, some of which include Chinese manufacturers, had been lobbying the Biden administration to take action against the tariffs.Adam Dean for The New York TimesBut domestic solar producers and U.S. labor unions have said that the recent surge in imports from Chinese companies doing their manufacturing in Southeast Asia clearly violates U.S. trade law, which forbids companies to try to avoid U.S. tariffs by moving production or assembly of a product to another country.The domestic producers have accused importers — who have close commercial ties with China — of exaggerating their industry’s hardships to try to sway the Biden administration and preserve profit margins that stem from unfairly priced imports.“If you have a supply chain that depends on dumped and subsidized imports, then you’ve got a problem with your supply chain,” said Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.“We’re getting dependent on hostile countries without sufficient domestic production to ensure against price hikes and supply shocks,” said Michael Stumo, chief executive of Coalition for a Prosperous America, a nonprofit group that promotes domestic manufacturing. “Whether it’s medicine, or PPE, or solar panels, you’ve got to have domestic production.”Some critics also said the legal rationale for the White House’s moves was specious, arguing that the administration was effectively declaring a state of emergency because of the consequences of its own trade laws.Scott Lincicome, a trade policy expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said that the administration’s actions seemed to be “quite the stretch of the statute.”The trade law provision that Mr. Biden invoked allows the president to “declare an emergency to exist by reason of a state of war, or otherwise,” and during such a state of emergency to import “food, clothing, and medical, surgical, and other supplies for use in emergency relief work” duty free.He said critics of U.S. tariffs had long proposed a “public interest” test that would allow levies to be lifted to mitigate broader economic harm, but Congress had never approved such an action.In a letter late last month, Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, both Democrats, complained that solar importers had spent “millions of dollars on advertising and lobbying to urge political interference in the trade enforcement process.” Biden administration officials had previously said that the Commerce Department’s inquiry was immune to political interference, describing it as “quasi-judicial” and “apolitical.”Solar tariffs have been a source of contention for decades, but they have taken on renewed importance in recent years as the consequences of climate change became more apparent. Chinese companies have expanded internationally, allowing them to continue to ship products to the United States, while American companies have struggled to compete.The global solar industry’s dependence on China has complicated the Biden administration’s efforts to ban products linked with forced labor in Xinjiang, the northwest region where U.S. officials say Chinese authorities have detained more than one million Uyghurs and other minorities. Xinjiang is a major producer of polysilicon, the raw material for solar panels.Solar importers complained that a ban last year on solar raw materials made with forced labor by Hoshine Silicon Industry temporarily halted billions of dollars of American projects, as companies struggled to produce documentation to customs officials to prove that neither they nor their suppliers were obtaining material from Hoshine.After the Russia invasion of Ukraine in February, high gasoline prices have also impeded a broader desire to push the country away from oil and left Mr. Biden asking oil-producing nations in the Middle East and beyond to ramp up production.White House officials said Monday that Mr. Biden would sign a suite of directives meant to increase the domestic development of low-emission energy technologies. He is set to make it easier for domestic suppliers to sell solar systems to the federal government. And he will order the Department of Energy to use the Defense Production Act to “rapidly expand American manufacturing” of solar panel parts, building insulation, heat pumps, power grid infrastructure and fuel cells, the administration said in a fact sheet. More

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    Biden to Allow Higher-Ethanol E15 Gas to Be Sold All Summer

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    WASHINGTON — President Biden announced on Tuesday a plan to suspend a ban on summertime sales of higher-ethanol gasoline blends, a move that White House officials said was aimed at reducing gas prices but that energy experts predicted would have only a marginal impact at the pump.The Environmental Protection Agency will issue a waiver that would allow the blend known as E15 — which is made of 15 percent ethanol — to be used between June 1 and Sept. 15. The White House estimated that approximately 2,300 stations in the country offer the blend and cast the decision as a move toward “energy independence.”“E15 is about 10 cents a gallon cheaper,” Mr. Biden said, speaking after taking a tour of a production facility that produces 150 million gallons of bioethanol annually. “And some gas stations offer an even bigger discount than that.”“When you have a choice, you have competition,” Mr. Biden added. “When you have competition, you have better prices.”The decision to lift the summertime ban comes as Mr. Biden faces growing pressure to bring down energy prices, which helped drive the fastest rate of inflation since 1981 in March. A gallon of gas was averaging $4.10 on Tuesday, according to AAA. Last month, the president announced a plan to release one million barrels of oil a day from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next six months.Understand Inflation in the U.S.Inflation 101: What is inflation, why is it up and whom does it hurt? Our guide explains it all.Your Questions, Answered: Times readers sent us their questions about rising prices. Top experts and economists weighed in.Interest Rates: As it seeks to curb inflation, the Federal Reserve announced that it was raising interest rates for the first time since 2018.How Americans Feel: We asked 2,200 people where they’ve noticed inflation. Many mentioned basic necessities, like food and gas.Supply Chain’s Role: A key factor in rising inflation is the continuing turmoil in the global supply chain. Here’s how the crisis unfolded.Ethanol is made from corn and other crops and has been mixed into some types of gasoline for years as a way to reduce reliance on oil. But the blend’s higher volatility can contribute to smog in warmer weather. For that reason, environmental groups have traditionally objected to lifting the summertime ban, as have oil companies, which fear greater use of ethanol will cut into their sales.How much the presence of ethanol holds down fuel prices has been a subject of debate among economists. Some experts said the decision was likely to reap larger political benefits than financial ones.“This is still very very small compared with the strategic petroleum reserve release,” said David Victor, a climate policy expert at the University of California, San Diego. “This one is much more of a transparently political move.”Lawmakers in corn-producing states have been urging Mr. Biden to use biofuels to fill the gap created by the United States ban on importing Russian oil. Oil refiners are required to blend some ethanol into gasoline under a pair of laws, passed in 2005 and 2007, intended to reduce the use of oil and the creation of greenhouse gases by mandating increased levels of ethanol in the nation’s fuel mix every year. However, since passage of the 2007 law, the mandate has been met with criticism that it has contributed to increased fuel prices and has done little to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

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    Why the U.S. Can’t Quickly Wean Europe From Russian Gas

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    The Biden administration’s plan to send more natural gas to Europe will be hampered by the lack of export and import terminals.HOUSTON — President Biden announced Friday that the United States would send more natural gas to Europe to help it break its dependence on Russian energy. But that plan will largely be symbolic, at least in the short run, because the United States doesn’t have enough capacity to export more gas and Europe doesn’t have the capacity to import significantly more.In recent months, American exporters, with President Biden’s encouragement, have already maximized the output of terminals that turn natural gas into a liquid easily shipped on large tankers. And they have diverted shipments originally bound for Asia to Europe.But energy experts said that building enough terminals on both sides of the Atlantic to significantly expand U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G., to Europe could take two to five years. That reality is likely to limit the scope of the natural gas supply announcement that Mr. Biden and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Friday.“In the near term there are really no good options, other than begging an Asian buyer or two to give up their L.N.G. tanker for Europe,” said Robert McNally, who was an energy adviser to former President George W. Bush. But he added that once sufficient gas terminals were built, the United States could become the “arsenal for energy” that helps Europe break its dependence on Russia. Friday’s agreement, which calls on the United States to help the European Union secure an additional 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas this year, could also undermine efforts by Mr. Biden and European officials to combat climate change. Once new export and import terminals are built, they will probably keep operating for several decades, perpetuating the use of a fossil fuel much longer than many environmentalists consider sustainable for the planet’s well-being.For now, however, climate concerns appear to be taking a back seat as U.S. and European leaders seek to punish President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for invading Ukraine by depriving him of billions of dollars in energy sales.The United States has already increased energy exports to Europe substantially. So far this year, nearly three-quarters of U.S. L.N.G. has gone to Europe, up from 34 percent for all of 2021. As prices for natural gas have soared in Europe, American companies have done everything they can to send more gas there. The Biden administration has helped by getting buyers in Asian countries like Japan and South Korea to forgo L.N.G. shipments so they could be sent to Europe.The United States has plenty of natural gas, much of it in shale fields from Pennsylvania to the Southwest. Gas bubbles out of the ground with oil from the Permian Basin, which straddles Texas and New Mexico, and producers there are gradually increasing their output of both oil and gas after greatly reducing production in the first year of the pandemic, when energy prices collapsed.But the big problem with sending Europe more energy is that natural gas, unlike crude oil, cannot easily be put on oceangoing ships. The gas has to first be chilled in an expensive process at export terminals, mostly on the Gulf Coast. The liquid gas is then poured into specialized tankers. When the ships arrive at their destination, the process is run in reverse to convert L.N.G. back into gas.A large export or import terminal can cost more than $1 billion, and planning, obtaining permits and completing construction can take years. There are seven export terminals in the United States and 28 large-scale import terminals in Europe, which also gets L.N.G. from suppliers like Qatar and Egypt.Some European countries, including Germany, have until recently been uninterested in building L.N.G. terminals because it was far cheaper to import gas by pipeline from Russia. Germany is now reviving plans to build its first L.N.G. import terminal on its northern coast.A pier in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, the port where Uniper, a German energy company, wanted to build a liquified natural gas terminal before it was shelved. Now Germany is reviving plans to build it.The New York Times“Europe’s need for gas far exceeds what the system can supply,” said Nikos Tsafos, an energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Diplomacy can only do so much.”In the longer term, however, energy experts say the United States could do a lot to help Europe. Along with the European Union, Washington could provide loan guarantees for U.S. export and European import terminals to reduce costs and accelerate construction. Governments could require international lending institutions like the World Bank and the European Investment Bank to make natural gas terminals, pipelines and processing facilities a priority. And they could ease regulations that gas producers, pipeline builders and terminal developers argue have made it more difficult or expensive to build gas infrastructure.Charif Souki, executive chairman of Tellurian, a U.S. gas producer that is planning to build an export terminal in Louisiana, said he hoped the Biden administration would streamline permitting and environmental reviews “to make sure things happen quickly without micromanaging everything.” He added that the government could encourage banks and investors, some of whom have recently avoided oil and gas projects in an effort to burnish their climate credentials, to lend to projects like his.“If all the major banks in the U.S. and major institutions like BlackRock and Blackstone feel comfortable investing in hydrocarbons, and they are not going to be criticized, we will develop $100 billion worth of infrastructure we need,” Mr. Souki said.A handful of export terminals are under construction in the United States and could increase exports by roughly a third by 2026. Roughly a dozen U.S. export terminal projects have been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission but can’t go ahead until they secure financing from investors and lenders.“That’s the bottleneck,” Mr. Tsafos said.Roughly 10 European import terminals are being built or are in the planning stages in Italy, Belgium, Poland, Germany, Cyprus and Greece, but most still don’t have their financing lined up.The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6Rising concerns. More

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    Will War Make Europe’s Switch to Clean Energy Even Harder?

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    At the Siemens Gamesa factory in Aalborg, Denmark, where the next generation of offshore wind turbines is being built, workers are on their hands and knees inside a shallow, canoe-shaped pod that stretches the length of a football field. It is a mold used to produce one half of a single propeller blade. Guided by laser markings, the crew is lining the sides with panels of balsa wood.The gargantuan blades offer a glimpse of the energy future that Europe is racing toward with sudden urgency. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia — the European Union’s largest supplier of natural gas and oil — has spurred governments to accelerate plans to reduce their dependence on climate-changing fossil fuels. Armed conflict has prompted policymaking pledges that the more distant threat of an uninhabitable planet has not.Smoothly managing Europe’s energy switch was always going to be difficult. Now, as economies stagger back from the second year of the pandemic, Russia’s attack on Ukraine grinds on and energy prices soar, the painful trade-offs have crystallized like never before.Moving investments away from oil, gas and coal to sustainable sources like wind and solar, limiting and taxing carbon emissions, and building a new energy infrastructure to transmit electricity are crucial to weaning Europe off fossil fuels. But they are all likely to raise costs during the transition, an extremely difficult pill for the public and politicians to swallow.The crisis that has inspired Europe to more quickly reach toward clean energy sources like wind and solar also risks pitching it backward by unwinding efforts to shut coal mines and stop drilling new oil and gas wells to replace Russian fuel and bring prices down.Workers at Siemens Gamesa preparing a mold used to produce one half of a single propeller blade.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesIn Germany, Europe’s largest economy, leaders are planning to have several coal-fired power plants that were recently taken off the grid placed in reserve, so that they could be quickly fired up if needed. After years of dithering about investing so much in the natural gas infrastructure, Germany is also accelerating plans to build its own terminals for receiving liquefied natural gas, another fossil fuel.“Security of our energy supply stands above everything else at the moment,” said Robert Habeck, the country’s economy minister and a Green party leader in the coalition government.Local officials are taking similar steps. Last week, the Munich government decided to extend the life of one of the city’s coal-fired power plants, scrapping plans to convert it to burn natural gas in spring 2023.And that’s in a country that has helped spearhead Europe’s efforts to shift to renewable energy.In Poland, which gets 70 percent of its energy from coal and has been at loggerheads with the European Union over the climate agenda, the sudden energy shortage is being used by critics as evidence that the push to shut mines was a mistake.A power plant in Poland run by CEZ Group, a Czech conglomerate of companies in the energy sector.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesDominik Kolorz, head of the Silesian region of Solidarity Trade Union, said through a translator that “the so-called E.U. climate policy” was leading to a “huge economic crisis” and “total energy dependence on the Russian Federation.”In many ways, Europe has been a leading laboratory for the decades-long transition. It started establishing taxes on carbon emissions more than 20 years ago. The European Union pioneered an emissions trading system, which capped the amount of greenhouse gases companies produced and created a marketplace where licenses for those emissions could be bought and sold. Polluting industries like steel were gradually pushed to clean up. Last year, members proposed a carbon tax on imports from carbon-producing sectors like steel and cement.And it has led the way in generating wind power, especially from ocean-based turbines. Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, for example, has been instrumental in planting rows of colossal whirligigs at sea that can generate enough green energy to light up cities.Europe, too, is on the verge of investing billions in hydrogen, potentially the multipurpose clean fuel of the future, which might be generated by wind turbines.At Siemens Gamesa in Brande, a prototype for an even larger wind turbine.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesWind turbines can potentially generate enough green energy to light up cities.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesSuch exhilarating innovation, though, sits next to despair-inducing obstacles.Even before the invasion of Ukraine, a tight natural gas market, exacerbated by Russia’s restraining of supplies, had pushed gas and electricity prices to record levels, leading to shutdowns of fertilizer plants and other factories because of high costs. Household energy bills are set to rise by about 50 percent in Britain and drivers across Europe faced shock at the pump.European countries, most notably Germany, had mapped out strategies that relied on increasing dependence on Russian gas and oil in the medium term. That is no longer an option.After the invasion, Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany, halted approval of Nord Stream 2, an $11 billion gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea that directly links Russia to northeastern Germany.As Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said when she announced a plan on March 8 to make Europe independent of Russian fossil fuels: “We simply cannot rely on a supplier who explicitly threatens us.” The proposal calls for member nations to reduce Russian natural gas imports by two-thirds by next winter and to end them altogether by 2027 — a very tall order.This week, European Union leaders are again meeting to discuss the next phase of proposals, but deep divisions remain over how to manage the current price increases amid anxieties that Europe could face a double whammy of inflation and recession.On Monday, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned that intense focus on quickly replacing Russian oil could mean that major economies “neglect or kneecap policies to cut fossil fuel use.”A hydrogen test station near the Siemens Gamesa design center. Hydrogen produced with wind power could be a multipurpose clean fuel of the future.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesThere are other technological, financial, regulatory and political hurdles. The ability to cheaply generate, transport and store a clean replacement fuel like hydrogen to power trucks, cars and airplanes remains years away.And there is the need to find a better business model.Siemens Gamesa is the world’s leading maker of offshore wind turbines, a key vehicle for achieving climate targets. The company is also working on a giant turbine that would be dedicated solely to producing green hydrogen.Yet, at the company’s offshore design center in Brande, a two-hour drive from Aalborg, the conversations focus on worries as much as bright prospects. The company just replaced its chief executive because of poor financial performance.Industry executives say that despite the huge climate ambitions of many countries, Siemens Gamesa and its competitors are struggling to make a profit and keep the orders coming in fast enough to finance their factories. It doesn’t help that building plants is often a condition for breaking into new markets like the United States, where Siemens Gamesa agreed to erect a facility in Virginia.Morten Pilgaard Rasmussen of Siemens Gamesa says companies like his struggle to get projects approved swiftly.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesMorten Pilgaard Rasmussen, chief technology officer of the offshore wind unit at Siemens Gamesa, said that companies like his “are now forced to do investments based on the prosperous future that we are all waiting for.”The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6Rising concerns. More

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    Russian Conflict in Ukraine is Reshaping the Climate Debate

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    Energy security has gained prominence while the conflict in Ukraine raises concerns over the possible interruption in the supply of oil and natural gas.It was only three months ago that world leaders met at the Glasgow climate summit and made ambitious pledges to reduce fossil fuel use. The perils of a warming planet are no less calamitous now, but the debate about the critically important transition to renewable energy has taken a back seat to energy security as Russia — Europe’s largest energy supplier — threatens to start a major confrontation with the West over Ukraine while oil prices are climbing toward $100 a barrel.For more than a decade, policy discussions in Europe and beyond about cutting back on gas, oil and coal emphasized safety and the environment, at the expense of financial and economic considerations, said Lucia van Geuns, a strategic energy adviser at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies. Now, it’s the reverse.“Gas prices became very high, and all of a sudden security of supply and price became the main subject of public debate,” she said.The renewed emphasis on energy independence and national security may encourage policymakers to backslide on efforts to decrease the use of fossil fuels that pump deadly greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.Already, skyrocketing prices have spurred additional production and consumption of fuels that contribute to global warming. Coal imports to the European Union in January rose more than 56 percent from the previous year.In Britain, the Coal Authority gave a mine in Wales permission last month to increase output by 40 million tons over the next two decades. In Australia, there are plans to open or expand more coking coal mines. And China, which has traditionally made energy security a priority, has further stepped up its coal production and approved three new billion-dollar coal mines this week.“Get your rig count up,” Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. energy secretary, said in December, urging American oil producers to raise their output. Shale companies in Oklahoma, Colorado and other states are looking to resurrect drilling that had ceased because there is suddenly money to be made. And this month, Exxon Mobil announced plans to increase spending on new oil wells and other projects.A coal-fired power station in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in January.Martin Meissner/Associated PressIan Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford, warned that high energy prices could lead to more exploration of traditional fossil fuels. “Governments will want to deprioritize renewables and sustainables, which would be exactly the wrong response,” he said.Europe’s transition to sustainable energy has always been an intricate calculus, requiring it to back away from the dirtiest fossil fuel like coal, while still working with gas and oil producers to power homes, cars and factories until better alternatives are available.For Germany, dependency on Russian gas has been an integral part of its environmental blueprint for many years. Plans for the first direct pipeline between the two countries, Nord Stream 1, started in 1997. A leader in the push to reduce carbon emissions, Berlin has moved to shutter coal mines and nuclear power plants, after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. The idea was that Russian gas would supply the needed fuel during the yearslong transition to cleaner energy sources. Two-thirds of the gas Germany burned last year came from Russia.Future plans called for even more gas to be delivered through Nord Stream 2, a new 746-mile pipeline under the Baltic Sea that directly links Russia to northeastern Germany.On Tuesday, after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia recognized two breakaway republics in Ukraine and mobilized forces, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany halted final regulatory review of the $11 billion pipeline, which was completed last year.The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was set to deliver Russian gas to Lubmin, Germany.Stefan Sauer/picture alliance via Getty Images“I don’t think the threat from Russia is outweighing the threat of climate change, and I don’t see coal mines opening up across Europe,” said James Nixey, director of the Russia-Eurasia program at Chatham House, a research organization in London.Certainly, the path of energy transition has never been clear. Five climate summits have taken place over the past 30 years, and progress has always fallen short. This latest setback may just be the latest in a long series of halfway measures and setbacks.Still, without a more comprehensive strategy to wean itself off gas, Europe won’t be able to accomplish its goal of reducing emissions 55 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, or to reach the Glasgow summit’s target of cutting net greenhouse gases to zero by 2050.As Mr. Nixey acknowledged, “this debate is changing” as leaders are forced to acknowledge the downsides of dependency on Russian energy.Even in Germany, where the progressive Greens have gained a more influential voice in the government, there has been a shift in tone.This month, Robert Habeck, Germany’s new minister for the economy and climate change and a member of the Greens, said events had underscored the need to diversify supplies. “We need to act here and secure ourselves better,” he said. “If we don’t, we will become a pawn in the game.”Energy prices started to climb before Mr. Putin began massing troops on Ukraine’s eastern border, as countries emerged from pandemic closures and demand shot up.But as Mr. Putin moved aggressively against Ukraine and energy prices soared further, the political and strategic vulnerabilities presented by Russia’s control of so much of Europe’s supply took center stage.“Europe is quite dependent on Russian gas and oil, and this is unsustainable,” said Sarah E. Mendelson, the head of Heinz College in Washington. She added that the United States and its European allies had not focused enough on energy independence in recent years.Overall, Europe gets more than a third of its natural gas and 25 percent of its oil from Russia. Deliveries have slowed significantly in recent months, while reserves in Europe have fallen to just 31 percent of capacity.Mateusz Garus, a blacksmith at a coal mine in Poland. “We will destroy the power sector,” he said, “and we will be dependent on others like Russia.”Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesFor critics of the European Union’s climate policies, the sudden focus away from greenhouse gas emissions and on existing fuel reserves is validating.Arkadiusz Siekaniec, vice president of the Trade Union of Miners in Poland, has long argued that the European Union’s push to end coal production on the continent was folly. But now he hopes that others may come around to his point of view.The climate policy “is a suicidal mission” that could leave the entire region overly dependent on Russian fuel, Mr. Siekaniec said last week as American troops landed in his country. “It threatens the economy as well as the citizens of Europe and Poland.”For Mateusz Garus, a blacksmith at Jankowice, a coal mine in Upper Silesia, the heart of coal country, politics and not climate change are driving policy. “We will destroy the power sector,” he said, “and we will be dependent on others like Russia.” More

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    Mexico Is Buying a Texas Oil Refinery in a Quest for Energy Independence

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    President López Obrador wants to halt most oil exports and imports of gasoline and other fuels. Critics say he is reneging on Mexico’s climate change commitments.DEER PARK, Texas — Two giant murals, on storage tanks at an oil refinery here, depict the rebels led by Sam Houston who secured Texas’ independence from Mexico in the 1830s. This week those murals will become the property of the Mexican national oil company, which is acquiring full control of the refinery.The refinery purchase is part of President Andres Manuel López Obrador’s own bid for an independence of sorts. In an effort to achieve energy self-sufficiency, the president of Mexico is investing heavily in the state-owned oil company, placing a renewed emphasis on petroleum production and retreating from renewable energy even as some oil giants like BP and Royal Dutch Shell are investing more in that sector.Mr. López Obrador aims to eliminate most Mexican oil exports over the next two years so the country can process more of it domestically. He wants to replace the gasoline and diesel supplies the country currently buys from other refineries in the United States with fuel produced domestically or by the refinery in Deer Park, which would be made from crude oil it imports from Mexico. The shift would be an ambitious leap for Petroleos Mexicanos, the company commonly known as Pemex. The company’s oil production, comparable to Chevron’s in recent years, has been falling for more than a decade, and it shoulders more than $100 billion in debt, the largest of any oil company in the world.The decision to pay $596 million for a controlling interest in the Deer Park refinery, which sits on the Houston ship channel and would be the only major Pemex operation outside Mexico, is central to fulfilling Mr. López Obrador’s plans to rehabilitate the long-ailing oil sector and establishing eight productive refineries for Mexican use. Mexico also agreed to pay off $1.2 billion in debts that Pemex and Shell jointly owe as co-owners of the refinery, which is profitable.“It’s something historic,” Mr. López Obrador said last month. In a separate news conference last year, he said, “The most important thing is that in 2023 we will be self-sufficient in gasoline and diesel and there will be no increase in fuel prices.”While Mr. Lopez Obrador’s policies diverge from the rising global concern over climate change, they reflect a lasting temptation for leaders and lawmakers worldwide: replacing imported energy sources with domestically produced fuels. Further, the generally well-paying jobs the oil and other fossil fuel industries provide are politically popular across Latin America, Africa as well as industrialized countries like the United States.In the 1930s, the Mexican government took over Royal Dutch Shell’s operations south of the border as it nationalized the entire oil industry then dominated by foreigners. Now Mr. López Obrador is poised to go one step further, taking complete control of a big Shell oil refinery.The takeover is all the more pointed because it is happening in an industrial suburb that calls itself “the birthplace of Texas,” where rebels marched to the San Jacinto battlefield to defeat the Mexican Army — the event commemorated on the refinery murals. The battlefield is a five-mile drive from the refinery.It is hard to overestimate the connection between oil and politics in Mexico, where the day petroleum was nationalized, March 18, is a national holiday. Oil provides the Mexican government with a third of its revenues, and Pemex is one of the nation’s biggest employers, with about 120,000 workers. Mr. López Obrador hails from the oil-producing state of Tabasco, and the powerful Pemex labor union is a crucial part of his political base. He ran on a platform of rebuilding the company, and has raised its production budget, cut taxes it pays and reversed efforts by his predecessor to restructure its monopoly over oil production in the country.When he took office three years ago, Mr. López Obrador began undoing changes made in 2013 to the country’s Constitution intended to open the oil and gas industry to private and foreign investment. He is also pushing to reverse electricity reforms that his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, put in place to increase the use of privately funded wind and solar farms and move away from state-run power plants fueled by oil and coal.Energy experts say Mexico is backtracking on a commitment it made a decade ago under President Felipe Calderón, to generate more than a third of its power from clean energy sources by 2024. Mexico now produces just over a quarter of its power from renewables.“They are going to heavier fuels rather than to lighter fuels,” said David Goldwyn, a top State Department energy official in the Obama administration. “Virtually every foreign company — Ford, Walmart, G.E., everybody who operates there — has their own net-zero target now. If they can’t get access to clean energy, Mexico becomes a liability.”Mr. López Obrador’s government has said it will combat climate change by investing in hydroelectric power and reforestation.Many of the Mexican president’s initiatives are being contested by opposition lawmakers and the business community. But Mr. López Obrador can do a lot on his own. He plans to spend $8 billion on a project to build an oil refinery in Tabasco state, and more than $3 billion more to modernize six refineries.President Andres Manuel López Obrador hails from the oil-producing state of Tabasco, and the powerful Pemex labor union is a crucial part of his political base.Gustavo Graf Maldonado/ReutersThe purchase of the Deer Park refinery is crucial to his plans because the Tabasco complex will not be completed until 2023 or 2024 and will not produce enough gasoline, diesel and other fuels to meet all of Mexico’s needs.Long a partner of Pemex, Shell, which operates the Deer Park refinery, is selling its stake in part to satisfy investors concerned about climate change who want the oil giant to invest more in renewable energy and hydrogen.Under Mexican ownership the refinery will continue its practice of using Mexican crude oil, but it will probably sell more of the gasoline and other fuels it produces to Mexico. In the future, some energy experts said, Pemex could also use the Deer Park refinery to process oil from other countries that also produce the kinds of heavy crude that Mexico does.“I think it’s a good deal and makes sense for Pemex,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at Oil Price Information Service, who noted that Deer Park could perhaps process Venezuelan oil if the United States lifted sanctions against that country.The Mexican policy changes would have only a modest and temporary impact on American refineries, which can replace Mexican oil with crude from Colombia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Canada. Refiners could lose as much as a half-million barrels of transportation fuel sales a day to Mexico, but energy experts say refiners would be able to find other markets.Guy Hackwell, the general manager of the Deer Park complex, said, “Best practices will remain in place.” He said the “vast majority of the work force will report to the same job the day after the deal closes.”As for the murals, a Pemex spokeswoman, Jimena Alvarado, said, “We would never remove a historical mural.”Residents in Deer Park, in the heart of the Gulf of Mexico petrochemical complex, say they feel assured that locals will run the plant and Shell will continue to own an adjoining chemical plant. “The phone numbers will remain the same for who we contact in the event of an emergency and we will still have the same people and relationships, so I feel good about that,” Deer Park’s city manager, Jay Stokes, said.But some energy experts said Mr. López Obrador’s approach to energy, including the refinery purchase, would waste precious government resources that could be better used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution. There are also doubts that Mexico can build enough refining capacity to fulfill the president’s objectives.Shell, which operates the Deer Park refinery, is selling its stake in part to satisfy investors concerned about climate change who want the oil giant to invest more in renewable energy and hydrogen.Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York TimesJorge Piñon, a former president of Amoco Oil de Mexico, said Mexico most likely would not be able to immediately profit from slashing exports of crude and processing its own fuels since the refinery business typically has low profit margins, especially in Latin America.He said the Mexican refineries could not match American refineries in handling Mexico’s high-sulfur heavy crude. Mexican fuels made from heavy oil caused severe air pollution problems in many cities before the country began importing cleaner-burning American gasoline and diesel over the last 20 years.By exporting less oil, Mexico would also almost certainly use more of it for domestic power generation, potentially pushing out solar and wind generation and producing more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.“His nationalistic decisions will have a negative impact on climate change,” Mr. Piñon said. “He is marching back to the 1930s.”Mr. López Obrador is unapologetic. “Oil is the best business in the world,” he said at a news conference last May. More

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    European Steel Plan Shows Biden’s Bid to Merge Climate and Trade Policy

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    A potential agreement on steel trade provides the clearest look yet at how the Biden administration plans to implement a trade policy that is both protectionist and progressiveWASHINGTON — President Biden has promised to use trade policy as a tool to mitigate climate change. This weekend, the administration provided its first look at how it plans to mesh those policy goals, saying the United States and the European Union would try to curb carbon emissions as part of a trade deal covering steel and aluminum.The arrangement, which American and European leaders aim to introduce by 2024, would use tariffs or other tools to encourage the production and trade of metals made with fewer carbon emissions in places including the United States and European Union, and block dirtier steel and aluminum produced in countries including China.If finalized, it would be the first time a U.S. trade agreement includes specific targets on carbon emissions, said Ben Beachy, the director of the Sierra Club’s Living Economy program.“No U.S. trade deal to date has even mentioned climate change, much less included binding climate standards,” said Mr. Beachy.The announcement was short on details, and negotiations with European leaders are likely to face multiple roadblocks. But it provided an outline for how the Biden administration hopes to knit together its concerns about trade and climate and work with allies to take on a recalcitrant China, at a time when progress on multicountry trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization has stalled.“The U.S. leads the world in our clean steel technology,” Gina Raimondo, the secretary of commerce, said in an interview on Monday. She said the United States would work with allies “to preference cleaner steel, which will create an incentive to make more investments in technology,” resulting in fewer carbon emissions and more jobs.In the same interview, Katherine Tai, the United States Trade Representative, said the potential agreement would restrict market access for countries that don’t meet certain carbon standards, or that engage in nonmarket practices and contribute to global overcapacity in the steel sector — accusations that are often levied at China.The effort would seek to build “a global arrangement that promotes not just fair trade in steel but also pro-climate and responsible trade in steel,” Ms. Tai said.Kevin Dempsey, the president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, said at an industry forum in Washington on Tuesday that the arrangement would be “positive for the U.S. industry,” which has the lowest carbon intensity per ton of steel of the major steel-producing countries.China accounts for nearly 60 percent of global steel production. Its use of a common steel-production method causes more than twice as much climate pollution as does the same technology in the United States, according to estimates by Global Efficiency Intelligence.In its announcement on Saturday, the Biden administration also said it had reached a deal to ease the tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump had imposed on European metals while the governments work toward the carbon accord.The United States would replace the 25 percent tariff on European steel and a 10 percent tariff on European aluminum with a so-called tariff-rate quota. In return, the European Union would drop the retaliatory tariffs it imposed on other American products, like bourbon and motorcycles.Under the new terms, 3.3 million metric tons of European steel would be allowed to enter the United States duty-free each year, with any steel above that volume subject to a 25 percent tariff.European producers would be allowed to ship 18,000 metric tons of unwrought aluminum, which often comes in the form of ingots, and 366,000 metric tons of wrought or semifinished aluminum into the United States each year, while volumes above that would be charged a 10 percent tariff, the commerce department said.To qualify for zero tariffs, the steel must be entirely made in the European Union — a provision designed to keep cheaper steel from countries including China and Russia from finding a backdoor into the United States via Europe.Supporters of free trade have criticized the Biden administration for relying on the same protectionist trade measures used by the Trump administration, which deployed both tariffs and quotas to protect domestic metal makers.Jake Colvin, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said the announcement would ratchet down trade tensions between the United States and Europe. But he called the trade barriers “an unwelcome form of managed trade” that would add costs and undermine American competitiveness.Ms. Tai said the administration had made a deliberate choice not to heed calls “for the president to just undo everything that the Trump administration had done on trade.”Mr. Biden’s plan, she said, “is that we formulate a worker-centered trade policy. And that means not actually going back to the way things were in 2015 and 2016, challenging us to do trade in a different way from how we’ve done it earlier, but also, critically, to challenge us to do trade in a way different from how the Trump administration did.”A factory in southern China that makes steel parts. The trade proposal would block dirtier steel and aluminum produced in countries including China.The New York TimesThe focus on carbon emissions differs from that of the Trump administration, which rejected any attempts to negotiate on carbon mitigation and withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change.But negotiations with Europe will face challenges, among them developing a common methodology for measuring how much carbon is emitted as certain products are made. Still, the announcement suggests that the United States and Europe might be ready to work toward a collaborative approach on lowering carbon emissions, despite past differences on how the problem should be addressed.European leaders have long advocated an explicit price on the carbon dioxide that companies emit while making their products. In July, the European Union proposed a carbon border adjustment mechanism that would require companies to pay for carbon emissions produced outside Europe, to discourage manufacturers from evading Europe’s restrictions on pollution by moving abroad.An explicit tax on carbon has met with more resistance in the United States, where some politicians want to update regulatory requirements or put the onus on companies to invest in cleaner production technology.Todd Tucker, the director of governance studies at the Roosevelt Institute, said the latest announcement suggested that the European Union may be “a little bit more flexible” on how the United States and other partners would go about lowering emissions. Mr. Biden’s reconciliation bill, for example, contains a proposal for a “green bank” that could provide financing for firms to transition to cleaner technologies, he said.“If the U.S. ends up achieving decarbonization through more of an investments and industrial-policy approach, it seems like they’re OK with that,” Mr. Tucker said.Though the earliest negotiations over carbon emissions in the steel sector involve the European Union, the Biden administration says it wants to quickly extend the partnership to other countries.In twin announcements on Sunday, the Department of Commerce said it had begun close consultations with Japan and the United Kingdom “on bilateral and multilateral issues related to steel and aluminum,” with a focus on “the need for like-minded countries to take collective action.”Both Japan and the United Kingdom still face a 25 percent tariff on steel exports to the United States imposed by Mr. Trump.The talks suggest a template for how the Biden administration will try to engage allies to counter China’s growing economic heft and make progress on goals like climate and workers rights.The administration has rejected Mr. Trump’s “America First” approach to trade, saying the United States needs to work with like-minded countries. But they have also acknowledged that the inefficiency of negotiations at the World Trade Organization, and distanced themselves from broader, multicountry trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.The announcements suggest that the Biden administration may not see comprehensive trade deals as the most effective way to accomplish many of its goals, but rather, industry-specific agreements among a limited number of democratic, free-market countries. That approach is similar to the cooperation the United States announced with the European Union for the civil aircraft industry in June.Ms. Raimondo said the agreement to ease the tariffs on the European Union was a “very significant achievement” that would help to alleviate supply chain problems and lower prices for companies that use steel and aluminum to make other products.“It’s all kind of a table setter to a global arrangement, whereby we work with our allies all over the world over the next couple of years,” she said. More