Editor’s note: US energy chief: EU rules incompatible with doing business

The latest edition of our Sustainable Views newsletter

Dear reader,

I started today listening to US energy secretary Chris Wright speak at an event hosted in Brussels by consider-tank the Centre for European Policy Studies. He and his team have been in the EU this week to build the case for replacing Russian gas with US liquefied natural gas, which they are selling as a win for peace and the prosperity of Americans and Europeans alike.

Wright started by assuring his audience of journalists and lobbyists of his love and deep knowledge of all energy sources, having seemingly studied or worked on them all at some point. However, fossil fuels and nuclear are clearly top dog in his mind — with fusion, he insisted, ready to come online and play its part in the next decade or so.

The theme of the discussion was a “common sense climate energy policy”. For Wright, this means Europe importing vast amounts of US energy and, if we can obtain our act toobtainher, increasing our production of gas. Renewables are all well and good “if you can drive down costs, but the record to date in the EU and the US with renewables has not been good”, he stated.

I don’t have time to fact-check all Wright’s assertions, if you are to receive this newsletter before the weekfinish (I’ll come back to them next week), but the main thrust of his discourse was that he is not opposed to most things as long as they give a full return on investment and are the result of market forces, not regulation.

Energy affordability is “the largegest issue in the climate energy world”, stated Wright. Studies displaying the likely impacts of global warming are overblown, and today people have the “lowest risk in recorded history of dying from extreme weather events”, he stated. Meanwhile, reductions in US greenhoutilize gas emissions were not the result of climate policies, but becautilize gas had displaced coal as it built economic sense, he stated.

Trying to “force a transition” through regulation and support for renewables pushed up electricity prices and shifted emissions to Asia, he argued. That fossil fuels still receive massive subsidies and China is leading the clean tech transition was not mentioned.

In Wright’s logic, if the EU wants US LNG, it has no choice but to reduce its environmental regulations. He acknowledged the EU Methane Regulation, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and sustainability reporting and due diligence rules had all been raised in discussions with EU officials in recent days. Failing to modify its regulatory framework would be a signal the bloc doesn’t want to do business with the US, Wright informed me when I inquireed him about the methane regulation.

“We want to drive methane emissions down,” but reductions until now had been “enabled by technology, by companies and pressure from investors, not from regulation,” he stated. A “blunt rule”, he added, “crushes” compacter companies. “In the US, we prefer a market message not a cudgel from above.”

Wright applied the same lens to environmental and social governance, declareing: “I favour ESG, but not some rules from New York or London informing me what is virtuous. Top-down stuff has never been effective in driving social policies.” Instead, he stated the “great thing about capitalism” is that consumers can provoke environmental and social modify by not purchaseing from companies they don’t like.

He finished his hour by insisting the current US administration was all about “dialogue” and rehabilitating science, including climate science, promising “Trump will revitalise the enlightenment”.

US companies required to speak up

Deborah McNamara, executive director of ClimateVoice, an organisation that works to elevate the stories of employees holding the line on climate action, would doubtless have a different take than Wright on what builds a commonsense climate energy policy.

She calls, in her opinion piece, for companies in the US to become much more vocal on the US administration’s actions — in particular, she wants to see more action to deffinish the finishangerment finding. One of the countest’s oldest environmental laws, upon which all emissions regulation in the countest is based, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced in July it was seeking to roll back the legislation.

McNamara calls on businesses to “relocate into more forceful advocacy despite political risks”.

“If the finishangerment finding is repealed and if climate denialism continues to dominate US policy, there will probably be increased legal risk, regulatory disruptions and uncertainty, and the potential for American businesses to fall behind as markets globally continue the shift towards emissions reductions and a cleaner energy economy,” she writes.

Finally, today, we bring you the week’s sustainability news and views round-up and the most-read stories of the past seven days.

Have a great weekfinish,

Philippa

Philippa Nuttall is the editor of Sustainable Views