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lng exports
At COP29, Democrat Senators Vow to 'Rise Up' for Climate During 'Dark Days' of Trump 2.0
"Just like climate change won't be solved by any one president, climate action won't be stopped by any one president," Sen. Ed Markey said at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Azerbaijan.
Nov 16, 2024
A pair of Democratic U.S. senators pledged Saturday at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan to keep fighting for climate action during Republican President-elect Donald Trump's second term, while urging President Joe Biden to act decisively against liquefied natural gas exports before the end of his presidency.
Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ed Markey of Massachusetts spoke at a press conference Saturday following a Friday joint panel discussion at COP29, where they both sounded the alarm over the dangers of Trump 2.0 and offered hope for climate action.
"With Trump and the Republicans taking their turn at the political reins, oil and gas companies will soon have their pick of lackeys to enable their destructive, polluting LNG wish list," said Markey, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Climate, Clean Air, and Nuclear Safety.
"Supercharged natural gas exports will be a new Trump energy tax on American households, costing households billions by sending fossil fuels abroad to the highest bidder," the senator continued. "Big Oil has a business plan—and is only here at COP29 to make their business deals, at the expense of working families in the U.S. and frontline communities around the globe."
"But our climate-focused, people-powered, renewable plan is better, and we're joining forces worldwide to fight for it and reject Big Oil's attempt to put private profits over the public interest—no matter who's president and no matter which cronies are at the controls," Markey added.
As the senator noted during a Friday press call, "Just like climate change won't be solved by any one president, climate action won't be stopped by any one president."
Earlier this week, Markey and Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) introduced the Targeting Environmental and Climate Recklessness Act (TECRA), legislation to "restrict access to the U.S. financial system for those individuals and companies most responsible for exacerbating climate change and deforestation."
Whitehouse said in a statement that "dark days are ahead in Washington as Donald Trump, Republicans, and their fossil fuel handlers abdicate America's leadership on climate just as the scientific and economic warnings of climate chaos grow more clear and grim."
"The world must be clear-eyed about the threat Trump's Republican Party poses to climate safety," the senator added. "At COP, I hope to reassure our foreign counterparts that Democrats will pursue climate progress at every level of government while fighting tooth and nail to expose the Big Oil-fueled corruption descending on D.C."
Markey stressed that "climate change and Donald Trump are both existential threats to our health and to our livable future—but we're not giving up on either front."
"Even if Donald Trump is ready to enact his day-one doomsday agenda and pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement yet again, we will rise up in support of ambitious climate action and climate finance targets—targets that will show that COP stands for Climate Outlasts Presidents," Markey argued.
"We must work together, both at home and in solidarity with lawmakers around the world, in order to delay and derail Trump and the fossil fuel industry's dirty agenda," he added.
The senators and green groups said one way to get a head start on fighting that agenda is for Biden to halt LNG export expansion. Although climate campaigners praised Biden's January pause on approvals for all LNG exports to non-Fair Trade Agreement countries, a Trump-appointed federal judge lifted the pause in July. In September, the Department of Energy granted LNG export approval to the company New Fortress Energy.
Under Biden's watch, the United States became the world's leading LNG exporter.
"While Trump stacks his cabinet with a carnival of corporate cronies, President Biden has just weeks to halt some of the biggest carbon bombs on Earth," Center for Biological Diversity senior climate campaigner Ben Goloff said at Saturday's press conference."
"From the Gulf Coast to Europe and Asia, U.S. LNG expansion is neither needed nor wanted. The Biden administration should urgently complete its review of LNG exports' many harms," Goloff added. "It should reject authorizations for monster polluter [Calcasieu Pass 2] LNG export terminal and other pending projects that fail to meet the public interest test required by law, science, and justice."
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How Will We Fight This Climate Nightmare?
Where do we go from here? The road won’t be easy, but just know that you won't be alone.
Nov 08, 2024
A post from the writer Rebecca Solnit has been going around a number of the group chats I’m in. She writes, “They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I.”
I’ll admit, I felt a lot like giving up the last 48 hours. Part of me expected the results of Tuesday’s election, but they still hit like a body blow. Watching the incredible surge of volunteers over the past few days, including thousands of climate activists who headed out to battleground states to help get out the vote, had left me feeling hopeful heading into the election.
But it wasn’t to be. Running on a message of hate and division, and backed by fossil fuel billionaires and the world’s richest man, Donald Trump won the election in a relative landslide, improving on both his 2016 and 2020 numbers, while making strong inroads with young people, Latinos, and other members of what we’d come to understand as the traditional Democratic base.
So where do we go from here? What’s next for the climate fight?
Lessons From the Election
First, I think it’s worth trying to draw some lessons from the election. The dust is still settling, and there was so much at play in this chaotic process that it’s impossible to point the finger and say that’s the reason that Trump won and Vice President Kamala Harris lost, but I think there are still a few observations we can make about how the race played out.
The biggest one is about the economy. For the past four years, Americans have been struggling with the high cost of everything from groceries to gas prices. Common Dreams readers know the role that corporations played in driving up costs, from Big Oil taking advantage of the war in Ukraine to constrict supply and jack up the price at the pump, to chain grocers like Kroger intentionally keeping prices high to pad their CEO’s pockets. But that message never really got to the majority of Americans. Democrats were skittish about calling out corporate power, and some late in the game messages about “taking on price gouging” rang hollow as a result.
If they want to win elections going forward, Democrats are going to have to do a much better job of calling out corporate power, including Big Oil, and showing the spine necessary to take them on.
I saw this play out first hand. When gas prices first went up in 2021, we sprang into action and launched the Stop The Oil Profiteering campaign to try and push the White House and Democrats to pass a windfall profits tax. We made some headway with progressive members, and the House eventually passed an anti-price gouging bill, but Democratic leadership never really embraced the message. They were more interested in “claiming credit” for when gas prices went down a bit, not realizing that in doing so, they ended up owning the issue. Instead of clearly saying, “These corporations caused the problem,” they ended up with a muddled message about Russian President Vladimir Putin, supply and demand, and global markets.
In that context, it was easy for Trump to just repeat, “Biden is to blame,” on everything from gas to groceries to the lack of affordable housing. He didn’t need a plan to solve the problem, he just needed to show that he was as angry as you were, and that he knew who to fight. If they want to win elections going forward, Democrats are going to have to do a much better job of calling out corporate power, including Big Oil, and showing the spine necessary to take them on.
Second, I think Harris’ run to the center didn’t help her win over the voters she needed for the election. You can see this on any host of policy issues (with her failure to speak more clearly about the genocide in Gaza at the top of the list), but let’s focus on climate and energy. The Harris campaign was clearly nervous that any talk about energy issues would backfire by reminding some Pennsylvania voters that she’d opposed fracking in the past. But this supposed fracking backlash was always more of a media fabrication: Polling from Climate Power showed that when asked about issues that made them less likely to support Vice President Harris, only 3% of likely voters listed fracking—it just wasn’t on people’s radar screens.
Our job is to fight back, while doing everything we can to keep building a clean energy economy that works for all.
On the flip side, huge majorities of both Harris’ base and independent voters support the buildout of more clean energy, something Trump clearly opposes and will work to undermine. There are clean energy jobs at stake in every battleground state and across the country, but the Harris campaign never effectively weaponized the issue and made Trump’s crazy theories about wind turbines and solar panels a liability. Yes, a lot of environmental groups tried to drive this message, but we needed it from the top down and Harris never fully delivered.
The same dynamic played out with Hurricane Helene and Milton. In the days after Helene hit, I remember going through VP Harris’ various social media feeds and being shocked to see that there was hardly any mention of climate change. When I reached out to folks on the campaign, they said that she was focused on pushing back on disinformation about FEMA and supporting recovery efforts, which is important and admirable, but wasn’t really an answer. Again, I imagine that the campaign felt like calling the storms “climate disasters” was somehow too edgy and might turn off some voters. What that left them with was a professorial response—“this problem is very serious”—rather than a powerful, emotional, resonant message. In that vacuum, fake news about $750 checks and Biden intentionally withholding aid landed. They weren’t “true,” but they felt intense and shocking in a way that people were hungry for.
Did any of this prove decisive in the election? Maybe not. Again, there were so many factors at play and the Harris campaign did a lot of things right. But going forward, helping people understand who is really to blame for their economic hardships, and learning how to harness climate disasters and other disruptive events, are going to be crucial for pushing back on Trump and Big Oil’s agenda.
The Fight Ahead
Which brings us to the fight ahead. We don’t know exactly what Trump is going to do on climate and fossil fuels, but if Project 2025 and his campaign rhetoric is any indication, it’s going to be a nightmare. We can expect the Trump administration to not only take a bulldozer to environmental laws and regulations, but do everything they can to weaponize other parts of the government, like the Interior and Department of Energy, to promote fossil fuel development.
Our job is to fight back, while doing everything we can to keep building a clean energy economy that works for all.
First and foremost, that means standing in solidarity with our frontline allies. We know that Black, brown, and Indigenous people are at the forefront of fossil fuel expansion and bear the brunt of pollution and toxic chemicals. We need to push donors to invest more with grassroots groups in these communities and do what we can as activists to support their fights. As our frontline, and especially our Indigenous allies will remind us, they’ve been fighting under an oppressive system of white supremacy all their lives. While the struggle may be more intense over the coming years, it isn’t new, and we’ve got tools and tactics to fight back.
We can ensure that Trump faces massive resistance if he attempts to roll back clean energy programs that are creating jobs and saving consumers money, especially in Republican districts and states that have received the majority of benefits from the IRA.
Second, we need to do everything we can to slow new fossil fuel development. Try as he might, Trump can’t build new fossil fuel projects unilaterally. Remember his campaign promise to build the Keystone XL pipeline? It never happened. We need to do everything we can to stop new projects in their tracks, from going after project financing, to filing lawsuits, to organizing grassroots campaigns that can stop projects on the ground. And remember, this isn’t just a fight for progressives or liberals: Many of these projects go through deeply conservative areas, and there are lots of folks in Trump’s base who may change their opinion on the merits of “drill, baby, drill” when it shows up in their backyard. As Rebecca Solnit reminds us, “the fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.” We may not be able to stop every handout to the fossil fuel industry, but saving even one community from a destructive project is worth the fight. Every pipeline, every fossil fuel export terminal, and every fracking well we can stop matters.
Third, we need our cities, states, and federal allies to play offense. We don’t need to give the fossil fuel industry carte blanche to pursue their planet wrecking agenda. Now is the time to double down on building public support for the lawsuits and investigations that could ultimately hold Big Oil accountable for climate deception. Over 30 cities, states, municipalities, and tribal governments are already suing Big Oil, and I think we’ll see dozens more in the years to come. We can also push more states to follow Vermont’s lead and pass Climate Superfund bills that will force oil and gas companies to pay for climate damages—the biggest one currently on deck is in New York, where pressure is ratcheting up on Gov. Kathy Hochul to act. As fossil fuel CEOs tighten their grip on D.C., we can still get after them from every other corner of the country.
Fourth, let’s make the clean energy buildout unstoppable. The Biden Administration should be doing everything it can to get any remaining funds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) out the door before they leave office. In the meantime, we need to start preparing to defend the clean energy programs and projects in our cities, states, and communities. We can ensure that Trump faces massive resistance if he attempts to roll back clean energy programs that are creating jobs and saving consumers money, especially in Republican districts and states that have received the majority of benefits from the IRA. But defense won’t be enough: We also need to create a movement of people all across the country who continue to accelerate the deployment of clean energy. Progress will be decentralized, but it doesn’t need to be derailed—especially if we all get to work.
Fifth, we need to tell a better story about climate and clean energy that connects with everyday people’s lives. There are so many good examples across the movement of groups making these connections: Environmental justice groups are connecting pollution directly to individual health; local clean energy groups are showing people how going solar will reduce electricity bills; mutual aid networks are effectively responding to extreme weather events and helping people connect the dots to climate and fossil fuels. It’s time to double down on all that work and more, while making sure that these narratives are echoed by our political leaders. As I said above, Democrats haven’t done a good job blaming Big Oil for things like inflation and high gas prices—that needs to change if they want to win elections in the future.
Finally, we need the Biden administration to do everything it can on climate before Trump takes office. Get all the money from the IRA out the door. Conclude the Department of Energy’s studies on the impacts of Liquified Natural Gas exports and show they aren’t in the public’s interest. Reject major new export facilities like the CP2 carbon megabomb in Louisiana. Ban drilling on public lands and waters. Set aside new protected areas. Yes, Trump will be able to claw back some of these actions, but in some cases, doing so will require years of legal challenges. I’d rather we keep them busy trying to undo progress than actively doing damage.
It is completely understandable to feel demoralized right now. Take time to let this sink in. Take time to grieve. Support your friends and family to do the same. But remember, as Joan Baez said, “Action is the antidote to despair.” I’ve already felt the small flame of hope inside of me begin to burn brighter as I’ve gotten to plot with friends and colleagues about the fight ahead. The road won’t be easy, but it’s one we’ll walk together. Onwards.
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Advocates Urge Biden to 'Secure His Climate Legacy' by Acting on LNG Before Trump Takes Office
"The clock is ticking—for the Biden administration and our planet," one campaigner asserted.
Nov 07, 2024
With just 75 days left before climate-denying Republican President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House to pursue his "Drill, Baby, Drill" energy agenda, clean energy advocates in the United States on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to take "bold action" to move toward a fossil fuel phaseout and a sustainable future for the world's people and the planet they all share.
"Although millions of Americans voted to reject Trump's dangerous agenda, we face another four years of a Trump presidency," said Oil Change International executive director Elizabeth Bast. "Trump has promised to double down on oil and gas production, accelerating climate catastrophe while continuing to enable violence against vulnerable communities—from environmental defenders to Palestinians facing genocide. His policies will compound environmental racism and human rights abuses, with Black, Brown, Indigenous, and frontline communities in the U.S. and around the world bearing the heaviest burden."
"Movements for change have won important victories under the toughest conditions," Bast added. "It would take more than a Trump presidency to change that. Every pipeline, every fossil fuel export terminal, and every fracking well we can stop matters."
To that end, Oil Change International U.S. program manager Collin Rees asserted that "in his final months in office, President Biden has the opportunity to secure his climate legacy by taking bold action to phase out fossil fuels and protect our climate and communities."
"We are calling on Biden to immediately end fossil fuel expansion, make permanent his January pause on new [liquefied natural gas] exports, shut down the disastrous Dakota Access Pipeline, and fulfill the U.S.' commitment to stop financing international fossil fuel projects," he continued.
Looking forward to this month's United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29)—which is set to begin next week in Baku, the capital of petrostate Azerbaijan—Rees said that "Biden must seize his final moment at COP29 in Azerbaijan this November to cement real climate action before Trump takes office."
"After pledging to move away from fossil fuels at COP28, Biden needs to deliver by championing a bold new $1 trillion annual climate finance package and putting forth a plan for a fast, fair, forever, funded, fossil fuel phaseout," he argued. "This funding will transform last year's fossil fuel promises into genuine support for adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage—but only if Biden acts now."
"The clock is ticking—for the Biden administration and our planet," Rees stressed. "What Biden does now will determine whether he'll be remembered as the leader who did his utmost to limit the Trump administration's damage and keep the world from hurtling towards climate chaos."
Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media echoed the demand, calling on Biden to "make a mountain of progress for Trump to try to undo."
Bloombergreported Thursday that the Biden administration is "racing" to complete a study examining the climate, economic, and national security implications of increased LNG exports. While Trump has vowed to end Biden's LNG export pause on his first day in office, any adverse findings in the study could be used to launch legal challenges to the new administration's project approvals.
Despite campaign promises to take bold climate action—including by banning new fossil fuel drilling on public lands—Biden oversaw the approval of more new permits for drilling on public land during his first two years in office than Trump did in 2017 and 2018.
During Biden's tenure, the United States became the
world's leading LNG exporter. The president has overseen what climate defenders have called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, and more than a dozen other projects that, if all completed, would make U.S. exported LNG emissions higher than the European Union's combined greenhouse gas footprint.
The Biden administration has also held fossil fuel lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and has approved the highly controversial Willow project and Mountain Valley Pipelinedespite warnings from climate scientists that continued fossil fuel extraction has no place on a pathway to limiting planetary heating and meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
On a positive note, the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by Biden contains unprecedented investments in the clean energy sector, including solar, wind, and battery storage.
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