The Green Solution to a COVID-19 Recession
U.S. energy production was in an existential crisis even before COVID struck, buffeted by unsustainable debt and falling oil prices. But the pandemic has triggered a wider economic collapse. Earlier this month, I called up climate and economics writer Kate Aronoff (@KateAronoff) – co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need the Green New Deal – to discuss what opportunities are offered by this crisis. Here’s what she had to say.
A window of opportunity
Because recovery from the COVID-induced recession requires large-scale government intervention, it’s an unprecedented opportunity to shift towards renewable energy – something that Aronoff says can’t be achieved simply by market mechanisms, or by consumers changing their personal choices. “There is no climate-neutral response to the crisis; it’s more fossil fuels, or weaning society off of them,” she told me. However, a greener economic stimulus may be easier to achieve outside the U.S., where the fossil fuel industry has less influence over elected officials.
Fighting unemployment with green jobs
The fossil fuel industry actually provides surprisingly few jobs: In dozens of states, clean energy outranks fossil fuels in terms of jobs. Aronoff sees an opportunity for the government here as well: “Unemployment is higher than it’s been since the Great Depression. There’s a case to be made for making the federal government the employer of last resort, guaranteeing full employment. That work can further energy transition, creating traditional green jobs as an alternative to the low-paid retail jobs that are, in many cases, the only jobs on offer right now. We could have a green Works Progress Administration and give people a living wage to do work that’s really needed, instead of selling widgets that are shipped halfway around the world.”
Democrats must step up
Aronoff sees the lack of interest by the Democratic Party leadership in fighting for a green recovery as political and environmental folly. Transitioning away from fossil fuels is usually cast as a project for the future, but with tens of thousands of people laid off in the extractive sector (oil, coal, fracking, and so forth) there’s a massive opportunity right now to create greener employment.
One important job is cleaning up abandoned wells that are now health hazards – work that requires a lot of the skills people acquired working in the fossil fuel industries. Another is expanding geothermal energy. It hasn’t received a lot of federal support so far, but it’s a no-carbon source of fuel that uses machinery similar to oil drilling. Some experts say geothermal could meet 20% of U.S. energy needs in the next couple decades.
As Mike Konczal recently told AJ+, state and local governments will need massive federal government support to survive the economic crash. Aronoff says such support is another opportunity to guide energy transition, especially because the downturn has slashed the tax revenues fossil fuel production generates for cities and states. “There’s a pretty clear political case to be made for looking out for workers in the extractive sectors in those states,” she said, “in addition to it being the right thing to do.”
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