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75POLITICAL SCIENCES
ЭКОЛОЕИЧЕСКИЙ ПЛАН НОВОГО ИЗБРАННОГО ПРЕЗИДЕНТА США Дж. БАЙДЕНА И ЕГО ВЛИЯНИЕ НА НАЦИОНАЛЬНУЮ И ГЛОБАЛЬНУЮ ЭНЕРГЕТИЧЕСКУЮ ПОЛИТИКУ
Хлопов О.А.
кандидат политических наук, доцент кафедры американских исследований факультета зарубежного регионоведения и внешней политики
Российского государственного гуманитарного университета (РГГУ), Москва
ENVIROMENTAL PLAN OF THE US ELECT PRESIDENT J. BIDEN AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON THE NATTIONAL AND GLOBAL ENERGY POLYCY
Khlopov O.
PhD in Political Science Associate Professor, Department of American Studies Faculty of International Relations and Foreign Area Studies Russian State University for Humanities (RSUH), Moscow
Аннотация
В статье анализируются экологические инициативы избранного президента США Джо Байдена и их последствия для американской энергетической политики и экономики. Предложенный им экологический план по борьбе с климатическим кризисом, предполагает инвестирование $2 триллионов в течение четырех лет для полного производства электроэнергии из возобновляемых источников в Соединенных Штатах к 2035 году. Соединенные Штаты предпринимают беспрецедентные меры для поддержки своей экономики, чтобы восстановление основывалось на более благоприятно климатической стратегии. США и другие страны озабочены проблемой снижения выбросов углекислого газа в атмосферу в соответствии с Парижским соглашением 2016 года о преодолении глобального потепления. Автор подчеркивает важность зеленой повестки дня в энергетической политике, предложенной Дж. Байденом, для США и исследует некоторые возможности и стимулы для развития зеленой экономики в ЕС и России.
Abstract
The article analyses the environmental initiatives of the president elect of the USA Joe Biden and their consequence for American energy policy and economy. His proposed environment plan to fight the climate crisis by spending $2 trillion over four years aim to fully generate electricity only from renewable sources in the United States by 2035.The United States are undertaking unprecedented measures to support their economy, to shape the recovery in a more climate-friendly way. US and other countries are concerned with the problem of reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere in accordance with the 2016 Paris Agreement on overcoming global warming. The author argues that the role of green agenda in the proposed energy policy by Josef Biden is very important for US and examine some of the opportunities and incentives for a green policy response in EU and Russia.
Ключевые слова: энергетическая политика, окружающая среда, зеленая экономика, лимиты загрязнения выбросов, США, ЕС, Россия.
Keywords: energy policy, environment, green economy, pollution limits emission, United States, EU. Russia.
The topic of "green" energy is returning to the agenda of in US presidential elections in 2020. Despite the fact that Bernie Sanders, who promoted the program of the Green New Deal, could not run for the presidency from the Democratic Party, the winner of the Democratic primaries, Joe Biden, had to compromise with the radical wing of his party and adopted the main theses of Sanders' strategy. A few days ago, Biden's official website published nine key points of his plan for a "clean energy revolution", which envisages decarbonizing the US energy sector as early as 2035 [1] by:
1) taking actions including requiring aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing oil and
gas operations; developing rigorous new fuel economy standards aimed at ensuring 100% of new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be zero emissions and annual improvements for heavy duty vehicles;
2) working with Congress to enact in 2021 to put US on an irreversible path to achieve economy-wide net-zero emissions no later than 2050. The legislation must require polluters to bear the full cost of the carbon pollution they are emitting;
3) rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement. To convene a climate world summit to directly engage the leaders of the major greenhouse gas-emitting nations in
making more ambitious national pledges, above and beyond the commitments they have already made;
4) making a historic investment in clean energy and innovation - $400 billion over ten years as one part of a broad mobilization of public investment;
5) setting a target of reducing the carbon footprint of the U.S. building stock 50% by 2035, creating incentives for deep retrofits that combine appliance electrification, efficiency, and on-site clean power generation. Together with nation's governors and mayors to support the deployment of more than 500,000 new public charging outlets by the end of 2030;
6) making environmental justice a priority across all federal agencies; requiring public companies to disclose climate-related financial risks and the greenhouse gas emissions in their operations and supply chains;
7) creating 10 million good-paying, middle-class, union jobs;
8) fulfilling US government obligation to the communities and workers that have risked their lives to produce fossil fuels that made it possible for America to win world wars and become an industrial power.
The elect president of the United States of America Joseph Biden intends to renew US participation in the Paris climate agreement. This agreement provides for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions - carbon dioxide and methane - by industrial enterprises in order to prevent global warming. The United States became a party to the Paris Agreement when Barack Obama was the US President and Joe Biden was Vice President. After the election of President Donald Trump, the United States withdrew from this agreement because, according to the new owner of the White House, it damages the economy and does not allows "making America great again".
Biden aims to move the United States entirely to clean energy sources by 2035. To do this, he proposes to attract $2 trillion in investments over four years. The politician also supports the plan of the leader of the Democrats in the Senate of the Congress Chuck Schumer, which provides for stimulating the exchange of conventional cars in the United States for cars with hybrid engines, as well as running on electricity or hydrogen fuel.
The former vice president on July 7 2020 outlined his own program to improve the US supply chain, including restricting imports from countries such as Russia and China. Joe Biden has secured sufficient support from the delegates of the upcoming congress of the Democratic Party to increase spending on the purchase of goods and services produced at home by $ 400 billion within four years.
The environmental plan of the US President elect Joseph Biden envisages an investment in energy transition to renewable energy sources will give impulse to the importance of environmental and green programs around the world.
The European Union is also preparing to impose taxes and bans on traditional carbon technologies that lead to greenhouse gas emissions. "In Europe, investments in fossil fuels are falling, while investments in renewable energy sources remain," analysts from the
Standard & Poor's (S&P) rating agency note. The European Investment Bank has already announced that it will stop investing in oil and gas projects in 2021. This decision is just an illustration of the general trend. Interest in renewable energy sources is supported by reducing their cost. Over the past 10 years, the cost of solar photovoltaic systems has decreased by 82%, solar energy concentration systems have dropped by 47%, the cost of onshore wind farms has fallen by almost 40%, offshore - by 30%.
One of the main supporters of the implementation of the Paris Agreement is the European Union. The EU is setting more ambitious climate change targets for its member countries than the general framework of the Paris Agreement to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. This is manifested in the desire to consolidate these goals not just as political commitments, but to introduce them directly into the legislation of the EU and member states - and thereby make them legally binding, which, however, leads to the growth of disagreements within the EU itself.
The attitude of many leaders of European countries suggests that they are making a choice in favor of an immediate green transformation. The United States after the inauguration of Joe Biden , judging by his statements, may return to the Paris Agreement. It's not just about the climate: those who move faster to new rails on green energy and green industry, will turn out to be an economic leader in the world.
According to the expert, in the new world, Russia will no longer be able to manage with the balance of emissions and absorption of greenhouse gases in its forests. Duties and taxes on products with a high carbon footprint will be introduced by the EU countries and if nothing is changed, Russian exports to Europe will suffer greatly, and Russian products will become less competitive for global exports [2].
Not only the EU countries are striving for hydrocarbon neutrality, but also China, Japan, South Korea, and now the United States. According to analysts of the Energy center of the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo:"These goals are absolutely real - they are not a whim of politicians or a momentary" whim "(as they sometimes try to present it in Russia), but the product of a broad public consensus based on the fight against climate change"[3]. According to the forecasts of the energy transition scenario, the export of energy resources from Russia in 2040 will be lower than the level of 2019 by 15% in physical terms and by 17% in monetary terms.
Russia is not yet ready for the green revolution, which is expected to be supported again in the United States. Russian officials are still working on their own low-carbon development strategy, which should reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 from 70 to 90% of 1990 levels. According to analysts, the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the transition of developed countries to low-carbon technologies [4].
The preparation of the regulatory framework for climate regulation is in a high degree of readiness in Russia, and it is necessary to create a unified system for monitoring and accounting for greenhouse gases as soon as possible. But while Russia reports on the high
degree of readiness of the documents, other countries are already turning their environmental goals into reality.
In Russia, the green economy debate is undergoing yet another perturbation. By the end of 2020, a working group on green finance will be formed in the Russia, thanks to which a classification of green types of activities for sustainable investment will appear for the first time. The Ministry of Economic Development (MED) received the status of a coordinating body for green projects and green investments by order of the government on November 18, 2020, and VEB was appointed a methodological center.
The adoption of the bill and the use of green financing instruments will complete the creation of a framework for climate regulation in Russia, the official hopes. When forming the classification, the Ministry of Economic Development wants to take into account the best world practices, in particular the European Union.
Another no less important point on the Biden's agenda is the restriction on the drilling of oil and gas wells on lands and waters belonging to the federal government. This is a significant limitation, experts say. According to estimates by the US Department of the Interior, in 2019, oil production within the federal territories was about 3 million barrels per day, and gas -13.2 billion cubic meters, which is a quarter of all oil and one-eighth of all gas produced in the United States. The ban on drilling means that oil and gas production within the federal territories will almost completely cease in a few years.
According to the consulting company Wood Mackenzie "if a complete ban on the issuance of new drilling permits is introduced, then by 2035 oil and gas production on the shelf will decrease by 30%" [5]. There are also concerns that under Biden, investments in shale development will decline, leading to a significant decline in production. The investment attractiveness of shale companies, which are already burdened with debts, may also decrease. Only those shale companies will survive that are able to generate positive cash flow amid low energy prices, and there are very few of them - less than a quarter.
As noted in the Wood Mackenzie release «Biden's victory will mean more than $ 2.2 trillion in renewable energy and energy storage infrastructure investment by 2035. The demand for solar cells for the utility sector will exceed 100 GW per year, and the battery capacity will exceed 400 GW - this is about 40% of the total installed power generation capacity in the United States in 2020. Coal generation will completely leave the market».
Wood Mackenzie's report highlights the scale of the challenges that come with goals. Today, the capacity of solar power modules in the United States is 4.7 GW, but according to Biden's plan, demand for them should increase enough to reach 100 GW per year. The potential demand for storage batteries should grow from the current 46 GWh to 600 GWh per year - all that means that USA needs to makecolossal undertakings.
The shock impact of the pandemic has manifested itself in most countries of the world and in all areas of
human life. Output in many types of industries has decreased, unemployment has increased, and personal safety requirements have been introduced that restrict communication and movement of people. Tourism, the majority of vehicles, especially aviation, have stopped. According to a very conservative April estimate, in 2020 the global GDP is expected to contract by 6%. The recovery of this indicator is forecasted only in the next few years. Under these conditions, there was a reduction in energy consumption, which was reflected in almost the entire production chain of energy industries.
The negative impact has spread to almost all large energy sectors, except for the renewable energy sector and the network economy. The uniqueness of the current situation lies in the fact that the decline in prices and volumes of hydrocarbon trade affected both sellers and buyers. There have been no such crises in the past seven decades. It is possible that in 2020 compared to 2019, oil sales will decrease by 9%, returning to consumption levels in 2012. Coal demand will decline by 8% due to a 5% decrease in electricity generation. Gas use will decrease by 5%, and nuclear power consumption - by 3%. The renewable energy sector is expected to grow by 1%, which is due to the implementation of several significant projects with a relatively small budget [6].
The modern world energy supply system is based on the use of coal, oil and gas. Over the past decade, oil has strengthened its leading position by almost 1% gas - by more than 2 %, and consumption of "harmful" coal has decreased by 2.5%. However, the most striking phenomenon was the strengthening of the position of renewable energy sources, the share of which in the consumption structure reached 5% due to a decrease in capital costs - cheapening wind power plants, solar panels and other converters. In the world, hydrocarbon deposits are scattered, which predetermines the concentration of their production and the ramification of interregional supplies. Currently, over 77% of the oil and oil products produced are supplied to the world market. The four net exporting countries account for about half of the trade.
In 2018-2019, world oil production declined slightly, while consumption increased by 0.9%, but the OPEC + concerted action regulatory mechanism somewhat evened out the situation.
The situation on the gas market was determined by many factors - economics, technology politics. The decline in demand for hydrocarbons may seem like an unpleasant surprise for the Russian authorities. "For 37 highly developed countries from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the parameters of demand for hydrocarbon fuels are rather disappointing for Russia. The overall peak OECD demand was 41.4 mln bbl/d and it is expected will have dropped to 38.2 million by 2030, and then up to 35.5 million bbl / d by 2035. In the long term, demand will decrease to 30 million barrels per day in the next 10 years: as a result, revenues from sales of oil and oil products in this part of the world may fall by more than 28% [6].
In assessments of Igor Golubchenko, associate professor at RANEPA «If you do not take into account
the trend for the development of renewable energy sources, you can lose strategically in the future. Delay can result in losses for the budget (export duties, VAT, income tax), and an increase in technological lag. The importance of the environmental agenda is not disputed today, and everyone will feel the consequences of climate change. Only an increase in the average temperature of the Earth's surface by 2.5 degrees will lead to a decrease in global per capita income by an average of 1.3%.
A cross-country study by the International Monetary Fund showed that a sustained increase in global average temperature of 0.04° C per year (implying an approximately 3° C cumulative increase from 2020 to 2100) would reduce global GDP per capita by more than 7% by 2100 [7].
Many experts admit that the peak in oil demand has been passed, the pandemic has shown that the prospects for oil production are overestimated. The energy industry is increasingly developing towards renewable energy sources (RES). The production of electric motors has increased in three years from 6 to 9 million units per year, and this fact demonstrates the gradual abandonment of internal combustion engines in favor of electricity. Today, the growth centers of electric transport are no longer the richest USA and EU countries, but China and India. If the borders are opened in 2021, the world will not be able to return to pre-coro-navirus oil consumption. For any country that denies obvious global changes and stands for the interests of the oil and gas sector, these changes in demand will bring competition and straggle for technological and global leadership [8].
Scientists predict that the new global climate order could be very tough. Supporters of toughening the sanctions regime are increasingly beginning to discuss the concept of creating a special system of global climate justice (following the example of the international sports justice system, the effectiveness of which Russian officials have already been able to feel). Climate justice could become a much closer reality if Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos heeds advice to donate a $10 billion grant to his foundation for the climate agenda.
The current 2020 has been extremely unfavorable for the oil industry. In April, oil prices fell to their lowest level in decades. The world witnessed how on April 20, futures prices for WTI (West Texas Intermediate) oil for May collapsed to minus $37 per barrel.The fact is that these sellers were mainly hedgers and speculators.
There are two significant factors that can actually increase oil prices even during a crisis: a war in some oil-producing region and a pandemic. Both of these factors can reduce the flow of oil to the markets. The impact of possible hostilities in the Middle East on reducing oil flows has been more than once, and there are plenty of examples of this. The spread of COVID-19 to oil fields could also create a situation quite similar to that of 100 years ago, when the oil industry was severely affected by the Spanish flu epidemic. Then, according to the press since 1918, the development and trade of oil in the fields of Texas were extremely sluggish due to a large number of diseases. For oil prices to
rise to pre-pandemic levels, two conditions are required: the depletion of oil reserves and the resumption of transport and the economy as lockdowns are lifted.
One of the scenarios corresponds to the situation when, when the oil price reaches $50 per barrel, previously created renewable energy technologies will become quite cost-effective, competitive and more acceptable due to environmental problems and corresponding support from below aimed at reducing dependence on oil. This scenario will be amplified if the oil producers start up their existing spare production capacity. Then a short-term return of pre-crisis prices is possible, but the situation will not return to the old favorable times.
The case for this possibilities becomes very strong when Europe and its oil companies are viewed as "trendsetters" on energy for the near future. Europe is more concerned than other regions of the world with the problem of reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere in accordance with the 2016 Paris Agreement on overcoming global warming. Many European oil companies have announced their plans to reduce carbon footprints to near zero by 2050 and see themselves more as energy companies rather than oil companies. It is not yet clear how exactly they will achieve this. The rest of the countries may not follow, especially if cheap oil continues to compete successfully with renewable energy sources.
The European Union is an important trading partner for Russia, so measures to reduce its carbon footprint will certainly affect it. The amount planned for a 10-year period to support renewable energy sources (RES) in Russia is close to the possible losses of Russian enterprises due to cross-border EU carbon regulation (about 5 billion Euros annually). Russia, as an exporting country, must take into account changes in the world structure of demand for energy resources. Literally in recent months, the emphasis in relation to RES has shifted. Decarbonisation in Europe has come across tangible pressure from potential carbon regulation in Russia. After all, Europe accounts for about 40% of Russian exports, so there are several years left before European sanctions against non-green imports. So the Russian economy should prepare for this.
It is generally accepted that long-term forecasts for the oil industry are nearly impossible. However, with the threat of global warming, it is entirely possible that in the next three decades, humanity will go through energy transitions to more friendly energy sources, including solar, wind and geothermal energy, as well as the massive use of natural gas to generate electricity. Improvements in battery technology and the use of electric vehicles will largely replace oil as a fuel. Meanwhile, the current trend in oil prices testifies to their steady growth in 2021-2022, if lockdowns decrease, and the reduction in oil production by OPEC + countries continues to drain the oversaturation of the oil market [9].
The carbonization of electricity production in the United States by 2035 is possible: given the declining technological costs and rising air temperatures, it is necessary to strive for a fundamental reduction in greenhouse gas emissions [10].
The energy plans (the Green New Deal) of the elect president J. Biden include achieving zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and electrifying the US transport sector and decarbonizes the electricity sector by 2035, which should create enough new jobs to offset a potential downturn in the oil and gas industry. The Biden's plans for the energy sector will cover everything from Middle East geopolitics to the global race with China for clean technologies, and are likely to prove unpopular with a portion of the American electorate relying on oil and gas for jobs. This means that energy will be critical to the future of the US energy industry with enormous domestic and international implications.
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