Liebreich: The Pragmatic Climate Reset – Part II: A Provocation

By Michael Liebreich, Senior Contributor, BloombergNEF

Rumors of the death of the transition have been greatly exaggerated, as I discussed in Part I of this article. In this second part, I want to lay out what a pragmatic reset in climate and energy strategy, one that responds to the current moment in history, might entail. 

We saw in Part I that the world is at or near peak emissions. We saw that one in every five cars sold worldwide is an EV, and that the figure is one in two in China. We saw that clean energy and heat now supply just over 30% of the global energy services consumed by the economy. And we saw that, as long as clean energy continues to outgrow energy-service demand, fossil fuels will eventually but inexorably be squeezed out of the system. 

At the same time, President Donald Trump is using every tool at his disposal to keep the US addicted to fossil fuels. And, like it or not, his actions are resonating in many other countries. The established consensus behind climate action is fracturing – it has crumbled in the US, was rescued from the brink by elections in Canada and Australia, shows severe strain in the UK and signs of cracking across Europe. 

The climate and clean-energy community is facing a choice. It can remain reactive, doubling down on old narratives, pressing on with existing policies, preaching to the converted. Or it can undertake a pragmatic reset: Wind back historical over-reach, accept harsh realities, address legitimate concerns, refresh its offer and find new ways of communicating with a confused public. 

I’m not going to write a manifesto. But I will present some ideas, intended to start a critical and perhaps overdue conversation about what a pragmatic climate reset might imply. 

1. Reset climate politics

Job number one is to reset climate politics. 

It’s easy to blame polarization on the oil and gas industry, libertarian think thanks and legacy media. The reality is that the climate and clean energy community bears its own share of the blame for this situation. 

Stop talking down to people. Stop trying to make them feel guilty. Stop using implausible scenarios to scare them. Stop disrupting their commutes. Stop using the terminology of anti-Nazism to demonize them. Stop using climate and the environment to signal group membership, or to score political points. Above all, stop treating taxpayers and consumers like hostages at a cash machine – forced to withdraw savings in order to fund priorities they don’t share. 

The transition will not succeed without the support of the sensible center. This is where most hard-working, asset-owning people reside, as well as the majority of executives and investors. These people are not “ignorant and inattentive” about climate change, to use the words of blogger and podcaster David Roberts, they are smart and concerned. 

When someone says they think climate change is happening but it’s natural, or that there’s nothing we can do about it, or that whatever we could do would cost too much, or that only some imagined technology holds the answer, don’t misread them. Chances are what they are really saying is that they fear the current approach will lead to an increased cost of living, expansion of the state and the empowerment of unelected elites, and yet most likely still fail to solve the problem.  

Looking around you, hand on heart, can you say these fears are unfounded? 

Winning back the sensible center demands a new approach, focused on self-interest, fairness and harmony. Self-interest – that is, the knowledge that families can still prosper in a low-carbon world rather than crony climate capitalism. Fairness – the sense that injustices are being reduced and risks averted, not climate lawfare. Harmony – the feeling that the places we love, the society and cultures we grew up in, will endure beyond our time, in place of environmental fundamentalism.  

To win the politics, stop taking the knee to Greta Thunberg and start worrying about energy bills.