• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’ January 23, 2023
Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom January 23, 2023
IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia January 23, 2023
BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels January 17, 2023
Next
Prev

‘Ending Zero-Sum Green Energy Politics’ Depends on Local Solutions, Win-Win Thinking

February 5, 2021
Reading time: 3 minutes

CoCreatr/Flickr

CoCreatr/Flickr

1
SHARES
 


A detailed, local pitch for jobs and economic activity will be central to the Biden administration’s push to transform the way the United States produces energy and addresses the climate crisis, writes Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, in a recent opinion piece on the pathway to “ending zero-sum green energy politics”.

After covering the wave of executive orders and announcements in which the administration laid out the initial dimensions of its climate plan last week, Rubin says the ability to “sidestep zero-sum thinking when it comes to climate change” will depend on how well the program builds public buy-in.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
New!
Subscribe

“If moving to sustainable, non-carbon-based energy means some people lose (eg., red-state Americans, oil and gas industry workers) and others win (eg., coastal liberals), the right will play the victim game and characterize their opposition to limiting carbon emissions as pro-job and pro-U.S. worker,” she writes. “If, however, Biden can convince Americans that there are only winners, opposition to his green energy plan should shrivel.”

So far, Rubin says the administration is on the right track, citing comments by National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy and Special Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry at their news conference last week.

“We’re going to power our economy with clean energy.” that will “produce millions of American jobs,” and “we’re not going to ask people to go from the middle of Ohio or Pennsylvania and ship out to the coast to have solar jobs,” McCarthy said. “You know, solar jobs will be everywhere, but we need to put people to work in their own communities. That’s where their home is. That’s where their vision is.”

“A key plank of our ‘Build Back Better’ recovery plan is building a modern, resilient climate infrastructure and clean energy future that will create millions of good-paying union jobs—not 7, 8, 10, 12 dollars an hour, but prevailing wage and benefits,” Biden added later that day.

But now, “workers, policy mavens, unions, and private sector leaders will need convincing,” Rubin says. “The administration is facing millions of workers who remain fearful about their own place in the new economy. Meeting that genuine concern will take considerable effort.”

While administration officials are signalling they understand the need to ground the transition at the local and state level, Rubin suggests three steps to ease the transition and boost its success:

• Offering “transition adjustment assistance” for people moving into local green economy jobs, similar to provisions for workers displaced by free trade deals;

• Reaching out to workers with concrete examples of what a well-paid future in the green economy will look like, at a time when the spectre “of leaving a good, union-paying job to be a $10-per-hour cashier at a big-box store looms large”;

• Recognizing that the U.S. fossil, auto, and other energy-intensive industries “are not immune to market forces or political realities” that are driving the shift off carbon. “The administration will need to highlight these and other developments to convince workers its promises are more than spin.”

While the rollout of the new administration’s climate and energy agenda is still in its early days, Biden and his team “should be both realistic and detailed about the economic transformation it envisions,” Rubin concludes. “That means bringing its pitch down to the state and local level and giving concrete data to reassure workers about their future job prospects. Only then, I suspect, will workers put aside the zero-sum view of green energy in favour of a win-win attitude.”



in Cities & Communities, Climate & Society, Community Climate Finance, Demand & Distribution, Ending Emissions, Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics, Energy Politics, Jobs & Training, Jurisdictions, Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion, Sub-National Governments, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

United Nations
Air & Marine

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
99
RL0919/wikimedia commons
Finance & Investment

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.3k
@tongbingxue/Twitter
Ending Emissions

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
315

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.3k
Joshua Doubek/Wikipedia

No New Jobs Came from Alberta’s $4B ‘Job Creation’ Tax Cut for Big Oil

October 6, 2022
468
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
99
Weirton, WV by Jon Dawson/flickr

IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia

January 23, 2023
548
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
279
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
315

Recent Posts

Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
288
Sergio Boscaino/flickr

Dubai Mulls Quitting C40 Cities Over ‘Costly’ Climate Target

January 24, 2023
102
hangela/pixabay

New UK Coal Mine Faces Two Legal Challenges

January 24, 2023
47

Gas Stoves Enter U.S. Climate Culture War, Become ‘Bellwether’ for Industry

January 22, 2023
80
Jeff Hitchcock/flickr.

BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels

January 23, 2023
509

Exxon Had the Right Global Warming Numbers Through Decades of Denial: Study

January 17, 2023
228
Next Post
Joshua Heyer/Wikimedia Commons

Wyoming Citizens Divided on Economic Shift from Fossil to Renewables

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}