Joe Biden’s election win is undeniably considered a win for the environment. His campaign relied heavily on reversing Trump’s course and facing the persistent climate crisis. Hence, “The Biden Plan to Build a Modern, Sustainable Infrastructure and an Equitable Clean Energy Future” merits a closer look. In broad terms, the plan pursues investment in (1)infrastructure, (2)auto industry, (3) transit, (4) power sector, (5) buildings, (6) housing, (7) innovation, (8) agriculture and conservation, and (9) environmental justice. The goal is to position America as the world’s clean energy leader.

The highlights…

The Biden plan sends a clear message: building clean energy equals building a sustainable economy. Sustainable clean energy comprehensively means emission reduction, energy security, social development, and wealth distribution. (Kung and McCarl 2018) The focus is on building In America, by Americans, and with American materials. The plan encompasses not only clean energy but also energy equality, clean water, and even broadband equality. Millions of jobs will be created by rebuilding infrastructure, building new energy plants and new vehicles, upgrading buildings and houses, and creating climate-smart agriculture.

A major focus of the proposal is to accelerate R&D investment; this includes a new Advanced Research Projects Agency on Climate. This new agency will work on reducing grid-scale storage, advancing nuclear reactors, bringing forward refrigerants with no warming potential, and achieving zero net energy buildings at zero net cost. The plan also proposes updating building performance standards for new and existing buildings.Buildings account for 39% of CO₂ emissions, so cutting the emissions in half by 2035 (as targeted by the plan) will significantly impact the environment.(USGBC 2019)

Most of the emissions related to buildings comes from the combustion of fossil fuels for heating, cooling, and lighting, and for powering appliances and electrical equipment. (USGBC 2019) Hence, new standards will also be pushed for utilities. The automobile infrastructure and fuel industry will also see updated standards. In fact, the plan is to establish a technology-neutral Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard (EECES).

Biden plans on holding companies accountable for their environmental damage, and even penalize companies that shift the environmental burdens onto taxpayers.  This represents a real challenge given that, historically, corporate political activity has been successful in defeating proposal to curb GHG emissions. (Arnold 2016) Yet with the current trends on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which last year included companies going beyond carbon neutrality and finding ways to be carbon positive, the corporate world may be more open than before to hold lagging companies accountable. (McClimon 2021)

Another goal throughout Biden’s plan is to provide 40% of the overall benefits to disadvantaged communities. To do so, Biden has included a data-driven Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool as part of the plan. The tool will allow agencies and the private sector to identify disadvantages communities to target investment.

Biden’s plan also includes the decarbonization of the food and agriculture sector. Among the tasks is to remove carbon dioxide by leveraging soil management, plant biologies, and agricultural techniques. Direct air capture systems and retrofits to exhausts are the proposed techniques for permanent sequestration. Additionally, the plan includes cleaning of the unplugged, orphaned, and abandoned oil and gas wells to reduce the leakage of chemical, methane, and other wastes.

Broadly speaking, Biden’s plan hits all major areas of sustainable clean energy. The plan only leaves a gap on energy security as it is not developed throughout the plan. However, energy security is arguably a given if energy is produced by Americans, in America, and with American materials.

A few points for further thought…

Biden plans to “Position the American Auto Industry to Win the 21^st Century” using R&D, power, tax, trade, and investment policies. This means interconnecting different sectors which has proven to be key in achieving the green transition. (Ćetković and Buzogány 2016) However, Biden’s proposal also seeks to reinvigorate unions. The plan argues that unions are needed to bridge the disproportion between productivity and wages created during the last four decades.  Productivity has increased 70% while wages have increased 12% only. Although unions could indeed redistribute wealth, unions have been shown to be counterproductive to innovation. (Bradley, Kim and Tian 2016) If unions are pursued as strongly as they are presented in the plan, they will be countering the efforts to innovate.

Similarly, the proposal combines electrifying the transportation sector with a vision to increase public transportation. Transportation accounts for 28% of the total U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions with the largest sources being passenger cars and light-duty trucks. (EPA 2018). Forty-five percent of Americans have no access to public transportation and rely on passenger cars. (APTA 2020) A priori, Biden is planning a double win reducing the amount of passenger cars by substituting them for public and electric transport.  Yet, Biden is also proposing to use incentives for people to trade their old car for a new electric car, but there is no incentive to trade the old car for public transportation. The issue of avoiding public transport is deeply rooted in American culture. Cities already heavily subsidize public transit, but outside of cities like New York or DC, people see public transportation as a sort of welfare service – only for those who cannot afford a car (Stromberg 2015). The increase of public transportation and the incentives for replacement of old passenger cars are competing goals that could result in millions wasted (most likely) in public transportation.

Additionally, the proposal makes several references to scientists and engineers as developers and implementors but makes no reference to increasing funds for STEM education or for inclusion of minorities in the sector. The plan mentions the inclusion of women and minorities in apprenticeships and in helping them obtain good-paying jobs, but the focus is on distributing the economic benefits not on capitalizing on their potential. There is a growing body of evidence that companies with women in leadership roles perform better economically and socially.(ILO 2021) Yet, in 2017, women only accounted for 27% of computer and mathematical scientists, 16% of engineers, and 29% of physical scientists. (NSF 2020)

Looking forward to…

A lot of the outcomes under the proposal will only be visible in the next 10-15 years. However, the proposal states that within Biden’s first term we will see:

1. A $2 trillion investment to deploy construction, skilled trades, and engineering workers to build infrastructure and the clean energy economy. This investment includes increasing the federal procurement by $400 billion to purchase clean energy inputs.
2. The creation of 1 million jobs by “upgrading 4 million buildings and weatherizing 2 million homes”.
3. An accelerated R&D investment in the areas of “clean energy, clean transportation, clean industrial processes, and clean materials”.
4. A scale up of best practices from state-level, spurring “installation of millions of solar panels …and tens of thousands of wind turbines”.

James Cameron once said that “the nation that leads in renewable energy will be the nation that leads the world”. Will Biden achieve this for the USA?

References

APTA, American Public Transportation Association. 2020. Public Transportation Facts. https://www.apta.com/news-publications/public-transportation-facts/.

Arnold, Denis G. 2016. “Corporate Responsibility, Democracy, and Climate Change.” Midewest Studies in Philophy.

Bradley, Daniel, Incheol Kim, and Xuan Tian. 2016. “Do Unions Affect Innovation?” Management Science 2049-2395.

Ćetković, Stefan, and Aron Buzogány. 2016. “Varieties of capitlism and clean energy transitions in the European Union: When renewable energy hits different economic logic.” Climate Policy 642-657.

EPA. 2018. Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Accessed 2021. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions,of%20U.S.%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions.

ILO, International Labour Organization. 2021. Women in leadership bring better business performance. https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_701767/lang–it/index.html.

Kung, Chih-Chun, and Bruce A. McCarl. 2018. “Sustainable Energy Development under Climate Change.” Sustainability.

McClimon, Timothy J. 2021. “10 CSR trends to Watch In 2021.” Forbes Leadership Strategy, January 5.

NSF, National Science Foundation. 2020. The State of U.S. Science and Engineering 2020. Accessed 2021. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/u-s-s-e-workforce.

Stromberg, Joseph. 2015. “The real reason American public transportation is such a disaster.” Vox, August 10.

UNEP. 2019. 2019 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction. International Energy Agency.

USGBC, US Green Building Council. 2019. Buildings and Climate Change. Rockwool.