2: Climate Policy is the New Energy Policy

About This Lesson

Let's think about the interconnected nature of energy policy and climate policy, primarily within the US context. If you have interest or expertise in climate and energy policy in a non-US context, let's chat!  I am always looking for opportunities to expand our perspectives, it's just my own expertise is in the US-context.

US federal administrations approach climate and energy policy with varied priorities and motivations. The past several terms have been quite the roller coaster with the Biden Administration marking the most ambitious legislative landmarks with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act and then the second Trump Administration moving swiftly in 2025 to repeal many of these provisions.  

Why is the federal approach so tenuous?  Part of the answer is the very structure of our democracy.  Take the Kyoto Protocol, for example.  While the Clinton Administration signed the treated in 1998, the United States never formally ratified it because it did not have sufficient support in the Senate.  Since then, we have seesawed back and forth between overarching energy and policy positions.  Every administration since at least Carter has experienced a pendulum in the degree of commitment towards supporting international treaties and how clearly energy and climate policy were linked, with the most recent two administrations demonstrating some of the sharpest swings.  Let's take a brief stroll through some of the recent highlights.

• 2015 - The Obama Administration commits to the Paris Agreement establishes the Clean Power Plan to help achieve the US Nationally Determined Contribution to that Accord
• 2016 - The incoming Trump Administration indicates intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement (a process that takes a full four years to execute) and replaces the Clean Power Plan  with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule 
• 2021 - The Incoming Biden Administration re-instates the US in the Paris Agreement, the D.C. Circuit Court vacates the Affordable Clean Energy Rule and instructs revisit the issue; the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passes.
  • Read more about energy and climate provisions in the IIJA
• 2022 - The Inflation Reduction Act is signed into law unlocking historic clean energy and climate funding
  • Read more about the renewable energy provisions in the IRA
• 2025 - The incoming Trump Administration fully withdraws the US from the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change itself; immediately adopts several related executive orders, most notably Unleashing American Energy; One Big Beautiful Bill passes, scaling back billions in funding opportunities to support clean energy and climate-friendly investments like the 30% tax credit for residential solar, clean vehicle tax credits, and more.
• 2026 - EPA rescinds the landmark 2009 Endangerment Finding that enabled regulation of GHGs as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act

When considering the relative merits and challenges of addressing climate at the local scale, one issue that often comes up as a benefit of local action is the ability to tailor the plans to the specific geographic, economic, and other circumstances of a location. But one of the challenges with this is that effectiveness may partially depend on support from higher levels of government. The Clean Power Plan touched on both aspects - it was national in scope, but allowed states the flexibility to craft their own paths forward to meet its targets. And we can use this as a model for how we can think about crafting large-scale climate policy that is both effective (reaching large swaths of emissions-generating activities) and flexible. So even though that Plan is no longer in place, it is an example of a flexible policy mechanism that I think is critically important for addressing a problem such as climate, covering the totality of the country, but with state-specific flexibility and consideration for nuances in local and regional participation in our energy economy.

By the end of this Lesson, you will have a greater understanding of:

• the inherent link and overlaps between energy policy and climate policy;
• what climate policy looks like and the issues it specifically addresses;
• US efforts (both nationally and at smaller scales) to address climate change, focusing both on the issues and the highly politicized volatility of the issue;
• the importance (and complexity) associated with global cooperation to solve the climate crisis.