How quickly should we transition to clean energy?

Rochester Business Journal by Abigail McHugh-Grifa

August 18, 2023

It’s rare, these days, to hear people question the need for climate action. Of course, there are still some extremists who believe that climate change is a hoax, but in general, outright climate denial is kind of passé. This is good news that should be celebrated, though an alternative narrative has sprung up that is in some ways even more pernicious. It basically sounds like this: “Yes, climate change is real and something should be done about it, but we can’t/shouldn’t transition to clean energy too quickly, because it will hurt the economy.”

That is complete nonsense.

This narrative has been intentionally promoted/spread by the fossil fuel industry over recent years, in order to keep their profits flowing. Though that may sound like a conspiracy theory, it is a well-documented fact. Just google “climate delayism,” if you’d like to explore the details.

Because the fossil fuel industry has done such a thorough job of getting this narrative into the public consciousness, I have heard smart, well-intentioned local leaders advocate for a slow transition to clean energy. I don’t doubt that they want what’s best for our community and genuinely believe that taking it slow is a good idea, but they are tragically misinformed.

The world’s best climate experts (as participants in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have been quite clear about the consequences of further delay. Here’s how they put it in their 2023 report: “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all (very high confidence). … The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years (high confidence). … Deep, rapid and sustained mitigation and accelerated implementation of adaptation actions in this decade would reduce projected losses and damages for humans and ecosystems (very high confidence), and deliver many co-benefits, especially for air quality and health (high confidence). Delayed mitigation and adaptation action would lock-in high-emissions infrastructure, raise risks of stranded assets and cost-escalation, reduce feasibility, and increase losses and damages (high confidence). … Rapid and far-reaching transitions across all sectors and systems are necessary to achieve deep and sustained emissions reductions and secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

So in other words, if humans fail to dramatically reduce emissions by 2030, we’re screwed, but if we do get our acts together very quickly, Earth will continue to be a place where we can enjoy safe and prosperous lives.

Now it’s important to note that moving quickly is not the same as moving haphazardly. Though we need to transition to clean energy ASAP, we can and should do it in a strategic, intentional, and equitable way, which will require effort, investment, and appropriately inclusive processes. It won’t be possible to reach consensus on every decision, or for everyone to weigh in on every issue, but we can insist that important decisions are made as democratically as possible and are based on solid science and a broad range of stakeholder perspectives.

New York State is actually doing a pretty good job of this. From March 2020 to December 2022, stakeholders with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise worked together to develop the scoping plan that details how our state can achieve net zero emissions economy-wide by 2050 (with appropriately ambitious interim targets along the way). The public also had multiple opportunities to contribute to shaping the plan, which truly influenced the final product (which I can confidently state because I was part of one of the working groups that received public comments).

Despite this robust and inclusive process, self-interested entities are still fighting to block the implementation of New York’s climate law, largely by promoting the delay narrative that I described above.

Climate delayism is an effective disinformation strategy because it feeds on people’s fear of change. It presents the challenge of addressing climate change as something that is too difficult and inconvenient to be worth pursuing in the short term. But delaying just means that we’re digging ourselves into a deeper hole that will be even harder (or impossible) to get out of later.

Of course, I wish we had gotten serious about addressing climate change long ago. If we wanted a smooth, easy, painless transition to clean energy, it should have started in earnest when I was a little girl. After all, the basic science of climate change has been understood for more than a century, and in the late 1970s, ExxonMobil’s own scientists produced remarkably accurate models showing how our continued use of fossil fuels would impact global temperatures over the long term. If they had chosen to share this information with the public instead of covering it up, or if the world had responded appropriately, in 1988, to NASA scientist James Hansen’s famous testimony to Congress about how our climate was changing, we wouldn’t be in crisis mode now.

Since that didn’t happen, and since the window of opportunity for avoiding super-devastating, irreversible climate impacts is now absurdly short, a quick transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy is really our only viable option. So if you hear someone suggest that we’re moving too quickly, please correct them, and if you personally believe that a slow transition is a good idea, I urge you to seek out additional information from reputable sources that can help you understand how truly pressing this situation is.

The fossil fuel industry is extremely powerful and they’ve put a lot of effort and money into spreading disinformation about climate change, so there’s no shame in acknowledging that you were misled and changing your tune. Instead of advocating for a slower transition, I invite you to join me in advocating for more support (both financial and logistical) for households, businesses, and communities that are trying to get off of fossil fuels, because even though transitioning quickly isn’t ideal, it’s certainly better than the alternative at this point.