Oil and gas companies knew they would face a fight with President Joe Biden, who had campaigned on tackling climate change. Nobody expected fossil fuel to come under such an immediate attack. Biden didn’t quietly sidetrack the Keystone XL pipeline with legal maneuvers. The new president yanked the permit on his very first day in office, blocking a project that would have delivered crude from Alberta’s oil sands before even speaking to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
He didn’t simply rejoin the Paris climate pact, as he promised during the campaign, but had his climate advisor, Gina McCarthy, commit Wednesday to “the most aggressive” carbon cut the U.S. can make. That came just before Biden signed a climate-related executive order suspending new oil and gas leases on public lands, directing federal agencies to purchase electric cars by the thousands and seeking to end fossil-fuel subsidies.
Taken together, Biden has moved faster on climate and clean energy than his former boss, President Barack Obama, who took office in 2009 under the strain of a similarly severe economic crisis. More orders will likely follow, along with legislation. Biden’s actions to date, and his far-reaching goals, reflect how much has changed in last the four years. While the Obama era ended with a fracking boom that transformed the U.S. as a top energy exporter, the Biden era has started with sharp moves against fossil fuel.
Next Biden wants to eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 2035, a timetable some utility executives consider too difficult and expensive to meet. Climate activists are now waging a “ war on gas,” fighting pipelines and pushing cities to ban the fuel’s use in new buildings—and Biden’s early moves align with these goals.
“In my view we’ve already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis,” Biden said in his speech Wednesday that elevated global heating to an “existential threat” with national security consequences. His immediate actions will make easier the job of his climate envoy, former Secretary of State John Kerry, as the U.S. seeks to regain the respect and trust of world and re-establish itself as a climate leader. On Wednesday, Kerry expounded on the new administration’s policies in a video address to members the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, warning that gas pipelines risk becoming “stranded assets” in three decades or less.