Donald Trump’s return to Washington might seem like a terrifying moment for the fight against climate change. The incoming administration is not just hostile to the energy transition; it’s also expected to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, roll back a wide range of pollution regulations and promote domestic fossil fuel production — decisions likely to worsen global warming.
But America’s energy market has evolved since 2020, in part because of new laws that are speeding the expansion of solar, wind and other energy technologies to reduce emissions. Both the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act passed a fractious Congress because of an important shift: Policymakers moved away from treating climate change as a moral crusade against fossil fuel villains to treating it as a problem of technological innovation and industrial strategy.
When Mr. Trump takes power, policymakers — as well as philanthropists, nonprofits and ordinary citizens passionate about climate change — must continue this strategy rather than revert to the old playbook of regulations, lawsuits and industry vilification. That means being cleareyed about priorities and expanding the number of powerful interests that stand to benefit from more aggressive climate action.
The shift in climate politics that produced the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law didn’t happen by accident. The bills’ champions in Congress and the administration understood that for these laws to endure, they would need to propel forward many different technologies to solve climate change: not just renewable energy but also next-generation technologies popular with Republicans, such as carbon capture, enhanced geothermal and nuclear energy. Over time, the laws have gained support by engaging diverse interests across the country that stood to benefit materially from the energy transition, from small farmers in South Carolina who are now getting free solar panels to the power company Calpine, which now has access to tax credits for carbon capture.
This approach has triggered billions of dollars of investment in everything from mines and processing facilities for critical minerals to carbon capture demonstration projects. It is also reshaping the political landscape: According to a Washington Post analysis, districts that largely voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 received three times as much clean energy and manufacturing investments under the I.R.A. as those that largely voted for Mr. Biden. And today nine of the 10 congressional districts receiving the most clean energy investments following the I.R.A. are represented by Republicans.
Driving investment to red states wasn’t an electoral strategy. The goal wasn’t to turn red districts blue by building battery factories. The aim was to create durable economic incentives that would survive political transitions. When decarbonization becomes good business, it becomes harder to dismantle climate progress.
Some members of Congress and some close to Mr. Trump have pledged to slash I.R.A. funds. But there is now a diverse constituency defending key provisions of the law, from Republican members of Congress to major oil executives. Under the old paradigm, climate activists would take an all-or-nothing, antagonistic approach through protest and litigation. Instead, they should work with the broader coalition not only to safeguard the bill but also to enact new policy under the Trump administration.
Maintaining momentum also requires embracing priorities that might make some climate advocates uncomfortable, such as acknowledging that clean energy has to become much cheaper and more abundant to beat fossil fuels in the marketplace.
To bring prices down, Democrats will need to be open to cutting down on the endless red tape and environmental analyses required by laws like the National Environmental Policy Act, which, while established to protect the environment, is now making the process of producing clean energy needlessly cumbersome and expensive. Large nonprofit organizations can (and regularly do) sue agencies if they fail to consider even the most marginal environmental impacts of new energy projects, dramatically increasing the amount of time it takes to build anything new.
We also need an approach to fossil fuels that moves beyond slogans like “keep it in the ground.” Attempts to punish the fossil fuel industry by limiting leases or permits for export facilities or blocking projects often backfire, creating price spikes with political backlash and price crashes that slow the clean energy transition. Instead, advocates should support stable oil and gas production for the near term to accelerate electric vehicle uptake, with the government acting as a “buyer of last resort” to avoid future price spikes. Price stability would prevent backlash while strengthening the economic incentives for transitioning to clean transportation.
It’s also misguided for climate activists to argue that issuing permits for new fossil fuel projects would put our climate goals further out of reach. In fact, fossil fuel development responds far more to market forces than to the regulatory environment. Consider liquefied natural gas: The government issued enough export permits to increase the global market for it by nearly 40 percent. But many of those projects have not even begun construction or are effectively on hold. That’s because market volatility alongside rising costs over the past year may not justify the investment.
Perhaps most important, the climate movement needs to build a broader coalition. Farmers have bountiful land that can be used to generate clean power. National security experts can make the case that we need to mine more critical minerals here in the United States, to avoid relying too heavily on China or other countries. And even fossil fuel companies can bring their expertise in drilling to bear on developing new technologies that would accelerate our transition to, say, geothermal energy. Climate action shouldn’t be the exclusive domain of environmental activists who pass a purity test based on intention, but instead on a pragmatic evaluation of what is required to make decarbonization good business, irrespective of politics.
This approach might seem overly accommodating to the industries that are causing climate change. But the legislation of the Biden era demonstrates that pragmatism produces better results than dogmatism. As we look toward an uncertain political future, one lesson is clear: The path to lasting climate progress lies not in oil and gas antagonism, but in transforming our opponents into stakeholders in a clean energy future. It’s a strategy that’s beginning to bear fruit, and one that can continue to work if climate advocates evolve their approach for a new political reality.
Arnab Datta is the director of infrastructure policy at the Institute for Progress, a think tank, and the managing director of policy implementation at Employ America, a research and advocacy organization. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
