With a moonshot US$500-billion spending programme announced in 2022, President Biden put the US on the map in terms of global climate policy. Thus far, the Democratic Party’s new candidates have been quiet on the issue. But the US climate community has no shortage of suggestions. Paul Hockenos reports. Read More
All posts tagged: USA
The unintended consequences – How protectionist policies in Europe and the United States undermine the energy transition in the Global South
The global race to become a leader in the manufacturing of green technologies is well underway. Many developed countries are pumping huge amounts of money into their respective green economies. How could this influence green economic growth in the Global South? Rebecca Bertram reports.
The US gets serious about climate protection: Biden’s IRA at one
In August 2022, the US Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), ultimately the Biden administration’s climate protection package. The investment into the hundreds of billions was billed as a “moonshot moment,” and applauded almost everywhere. Let’s take a look at what’s happened thus far. Paul Hockenos reports.
Anatomy of a mess: the cautionary tale of the US’s last mega nuclear reactor
The expansion of the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Burke County near Augusta, Georgia, stands as the only new atomic reactors built in the US in the last 30 years – and the most expensive power plant ever built on Earth. The story is one of chaos, broken promises, cost overruns and blown deadlines. So off the rails is this fiasco, it is most probably the last large-scale pressurized water reactor that will ever come online in the US – when it finally does. Indeed, no others are currently planned. Paul Hockenos reports. Read More
In Biden’s climate legislation, nuclear is clean energy
But even this won’t propel the nuclear industry into a vibrant, climate-saving era, writes Paul Hockenos. Read More
Global South issues in the Global North? A fossil toxic tour through Texas and Louisiana – Part 2
In May 2023, Andy Gheorghiu travelled along the US Gulf coast and visited LNG export sites (operating, under construction and planned) which have been co-financed by German banks or enabled through longterm contracts with German companies. He wanted to learn first-hand about the impacts on local communities and the environment. Lots of what he has experienced and heard reminded him of issues one would have expected in the Global South. Part 1 of these series looked at LNG export sites and impacted communities in Texas. This one covers Louisiana.
Global South issues in the Global North? A fossil toxic tour through Texas and Louisiana – Part 1
In May 2023 Andy Gheorghiu travelled along the US Gulf coast and visited LNG export sites (operating, under construction and planned) which have been co-financed by German banks or enabled through longterm contracts with German companies. He experienced first-hand the impacts on local communities and the environment – and was surprised by what he found. Lots of what he has experienced and heard reminded him of issues one would have expected in the Global South. Here’s his look back. Read part 2 covering Louisiana.
EU’s commitment to carbon pricing system doesn’t rule out state aid
The US’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) counts on massive direct subsidies to its private sector to stimulate a green transformation of the economy. The EU has opted largely for carbon pricing and other taxes to make the same transition. The two approaches are in no way mutually exclusive – and both have benefits. Paul Hockenos looks at the European answer to the IRA in the second installment of the two part series. Read part one here.
Moonshot Moment: Biden’s IRA Ups the Global Ante on Climate Protection
The US’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a moonshot moment in global climate protection, underscoring that the public sector will spend hundreds of billions in subsidies to drive decarbonization and a green economic transition. The EU’s bet on carbon pricing doesn’t rule out state aid, too. It now has to match the US plan. Paul Hockenos explains the details in the first installment of a two part series.
Will Dirty Nationalism Become the New Normal?
When I arrived in Berlin in August 2018, it was impossible to guess how different the world we are living in today would look compared to the summer four years ago. I had just started to work as a research assistant at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs – Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in a project called the “Geopolitics of the Global Energy Transformation”. Building on two scenario workshops and deep-dive discussions with experts from all over the world, the key motivation back then was to better understand where the moving target of the global energy transformation is getting us and what geopolitics have to do with it. This resulted in four different scenarios published in a seminal Nature article in May 2019 with starkly contrasting realities. The point was not to exercise sophisticated crystal ball gazing, but rather to reflect on a deeper, more structural level, and paint the energy world of the future (2030) on a decidedly geopolitical canvas.