As the U.S. economy reels from widespread inflation, Joe Biden’s White House is threatening to ratchet up methane regulation on the energy and agricultural sectors, putting further upward pressure on prices as America prepares for a cold winter.
“The plan is being announced Tuesday as President Biden concludes two days at a United Nations climate summit in Scotland where he pledged to work with the European Union and other countries to reduce overall methane emissions worldwide by 30% by 2030, according to the Associated Press,” said JustTheNews.
“This isn’t just something we have to do to protect the environment and our future,” Biden said according to CNN. “It’s an enormous opportunity to all our nations to create jobs and make meeting climate goals a core part of our global economic recovery as well.”
China, Russia and India, also top-five methane emitters, have not signed on to the Global Methane Plegde (EU-USA initiative to fight #MethaneEmissions). Of course, #NordStream2 has a resource base with the biggest methane leaks on the planet https://t.co/egqEpTBfKK
— Wojciech Jakóbik (@wjakobik_en) November 2, 2021
While industry groups in energy and agriculture are largely supportive of measures to reduce methane leaks, critics say that the action moves the cost of combatting global warming to U.S. consumers while giving China, the largest emitter of methane, a pass.
According to data by the World Bank, China emits more than twice as much methane as the United States. In fact, the U.S. ranks fourth in methane emissions behind China, Russia and India.
China’s methane comes largely from coal production, which is has been in steady decline in the U.S.
U.S. coal use has declined by 46% since 2007, according to data by the Energy Information Agency, while coal production has fallen to 50-year lows, in part because of actions taken under Obama-Biden to shut down U.S. use of inexpensive, domestic coal for electricity. Electricity heats about 40% U.S. houses.
Still, U.S. shipments of coal to China rose 30-fold in the second quarter this year as rising demand for electricity in China and a trade dispute with Australia, according to S&P Market Intelligence, saw U.S. producers sell out of coal for 2022 and 2023.
The U.S. is expected to see record home energy heating bills this winter according to CBSNews.
But thanks to Joe Biden, one remedy to high energy prices, U.S. coal, will only be available to Chinese consumers, but not to Americans.
