The climate sinner is getting cleaner, but it is not enough

Anyone who wants to stop man-made climate change cannot ignore the USA. Of all countries, they have released the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial age. On average, an American still causes almost twice as many emissions as a German or a Chinese. And because there are 335 million Americans, this has a global impact.

The good news: The USA has been able to significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions over the past 15 years. Emissions peaked in 2007, before the international financial crisis.

The bad news: Americans are still emitting far too much CO₂ into the atmosphere and would need to do more to put the country on a path consistent with the Paris climate goals.

Not quite as bad as it used to be

Whether the US will make its contribution to a net-zero world depends largely on economic and technological developments in the long term. But politics also plays an important role.

American climate policy is strongly influenced by the country’s two-party system. Many Republicans are skeptical of government climate protection measures, while most Democrats support a reduction in CO₂-Emissions are at least considered an important target.

The president sets the climate agenda, but without approval from the Senate and House of Representatives, big moves from the White House have no chance. Beatrice Tanjangco, the leading climate economist at the consulting firm Oxford Economics, says that in a divided Congress, states and cities have an important role to play: “They can introduce more aggressive climate laws and thus serve as a model for other states.” This can be seen in states like California, which have introduced stricter rules.

Biden’s contribution: subsidies and tax breaks

The Biden administration’s key climate measure was the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in 2022. Among other things, the law provides $369 billion for subsidies and tax breaks to promote demand for renewable energy and related technologies, as well as their production in the United States. Support will be provided for battery storage and the solar industry, as well as heat pumps, electric cars, and wind and nuclear power.

It is difficult to quantify what the IRA has achieved so far. Beatrice Tanjangco points out that it is difficult to imagine how things would have gone without the law. Progress is also slow: “The law is intended to bring about industrial change, and that takes time.” But it has been shown that the manufacturing industry in the USA has benefited from the IRA.

Because the IRA has created numerous new jobs in Republican-dominated regions, there is a good chance that Donald Trump will allow many of the subsidies to continue. “We no longer expect a complete reversal of the tax breaks granted to the energy sector through the IRA,” says Tanjangco.

Trump is likely to stick with the aid

“18 Republican members of Congress have already confirmed that they support maintaining the tax credits, even if the Republicans win across the board in November,” said the expert. This support within the group is already enough to prevent a complete repeal.

The most important climate policy lever for the USA is electricity production, because green electricity is also needed for the decarbonization of other applications. According to data from the Energy Information Administration, the country has made great progress in this area over the past 20 years.

According to researchers at Princeton University and the consulting firm Evolved Energy Research, who are jointly tracking the United States’ progress in reducing greenhouse gases in a study, emissions from the electricity sector are likely to continue to decline sharply.

Coal-fired power is a phased-out model

Without new measures, they are expected to fall from 1,700 megatons of carbon dioxide per year to 500 to 600 megatons. However, the authors argue for accelerating the electrification of transport and building technology, for example. Even if emissions from electricity production were “only” halved in this scenario, the net effect from a climate perspective would be positive because less gasoline and natural gas would be burned overall.

The progress made by the USA so far is due to the fact that it is producing more and more clean electricity. In 2001, 51 percent of the country’s electricity came from coal-fired power plants, which are extremely harmful to the climate. In 2023, this figure was only 16 percent; the trend is declining sharply. Every year, old coal-fired power plants are shut down and no new ones are built.

Nuclear energy and hydroelectric power maintained their share, but are hardly being expanded any more. Together they account for almost a quarter of the electricity produced in the USA. One sixth of the electricity now comes from solar and wind power plants. The latter is now the most important source of electricity in many states in the Midwest, where it is often windy and there is space for large, modern wind turbines. Because production is so cheap, wind power has also become established in Republican-dominated states such as Iowa, Kansas and South Dakota.

Many areas are ideal for solar energy

The solar energy boom, however, first began in California, where it was politically supported. The Golden State now generates 28 percent of its electricity with solar power. Solar power now also plays an important role in the desert state of Nevada and even in the northeast in Massachusetts.

Large parts of the USA are ideal for solar power. Some areas in Arizona, Nevada and Texas have up to 4,000 hours of sunshine per year, two to three times as much as in Switzerland. Even in Boston the sun shines more often than in Rome or Barcelona.

However, a large proportion of coal-fired power plants have been replaced by gas-fired power plants. In 2023, they produced 42 percent of the electricity in the USA. Thanks to fracking technology, numerous new gas deposits were opened up, which led to a strong expansion of production and falling prices.

Natural gas should help bridge the gap

The climate impact of gas-fired power plants depends heavily on which other energy sources they replace. Electricity produced with natural gas causes slightly less than half as much CO per kilowatt hour₂than if coal were used as fuel. Thus, cheap natural gas has helped the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But now the question is becoming acute whether the cheap gas power plants can now also practically reduce CO₂-free nuclear power, which would worsen the USA’s climate balance. Some nuclear power plants have already been shut down, and only very few new ones are being built.

Electricity production is a good example of the fact that Washington cannot control everything in climate policy. During the 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump promised coal workers that he would protect their jobs and increase coal production. In 2018, he even appointed a coal lobbyist as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

And yet, during Trump’s presidency, dozens of coal-fired power plants were closed because they could no longer compete with cheaper gas, wind and solar power plants. In the current election campaign, Trump hardly mentions the miners anymore. It is clear: Even in a second Trump presidency, from which no stricter air pollution regulations would be expected, a large proportion of the remaining US coal-fired power plants would disappear in just a few years.

Electric cars have a hard time – but hope lives

There is a lot of potential in the decarbonization of transport. In the USA, it is responsible for 28 percent of greenhouse gas emissions if electricity production is considered a separate sector. A large part of this can be attributed to private car traffic.

The USA has little public transport outside of the big cities, so many Americans are dependent on their cars. On average, they drive longer distances than Europeans and have a preference for heavy gas guzzlers that emit on average well over 200 grams of CO per kilometer driven.₂ emit; about twice as much as the cars driven in Europe.

 

Hopes are therefore resting on Americans switching to electric cars, which in turn use green electricity. In fact, more electric cars are on the roads every year. However, they only make up around 8 percent of new registrations.

The high purchase prices continue to deter many buyers. In addition, there have recently been problems at two of the largest manufacturers in the country, Tesla and GM. Hybrid vehicles are currently experiencing a second spring. Further progress in charging infrastructure and lower prices will be needed to convince a majority of Americans to buy an electric car.

Less focus is placed on the heating and cooling of residential and office buildings, which also consumes a lot of energy. In the colder north of the country, gas heating is often used, and in New England, oil heating is also used.

Things are moving slowly in the land of air conditioning

Climate-friendly heat pumps are becoming more widespread because they save homeowners money in the south. In the north, they are gaining ground because they can now be operated efficiently even in very cold regions and because democratically governed states such as New York and Illinois want to drive change. But the transition is not progressing particularly quickly.

According to researchers from Princeton and Evolved Energy Research, the US would still miss its emissions target of reaching net zero by 2050 by a wide margin with current measures.

Nevertheless, the presidential elections will have an impact on further global warming. This is also due to the role model effect of the USA: if they support the global fight against climate change, other governments are also more willing to use political capital for unpopular measures such as eliminating gasoline subsidies.

But if the United States under President Trump were to withdraw from international climate policy, countries such as Brazil, China and India would also find reasons not to make any further contributions.