April 18, 2024

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IntelBrief: Climate and Energy Policy Hot Topics Amongst Year of Global Elections

AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, File

2024 marks a consequential year as over 64 countries, or about half the world’s population, will hold or have held elections globally, with a myriad of issues on the ballot including climate and energy policy. The risk of climate change remains imminent with effects already felt worldwide. Global temperatures are rising, severe weather has affected millions of homes, and food and water have become less secure. Despite this, global coal exports and power generation hit a record high in 2023. The effects of climate change are more drastically felt by less developed countries, though they contribute the least to climate change. The major contributors to climate change have been the world’s most developed countries, many of which are holding or have held elections this year. As the topic of climate change has become more politicized globally, the election results of 2024 will have a significant impact on the policies that will be implemented, or current policies that may be reversed.

The upcoming U.S. presidential election is arguably the most important election of 2024, which, depending on the outcome, will have severe impactions on a multitude of U.S. policies, climate and energy policy included. Climate and energy policy is highly politicized in the U.S., driving Republicans and Democrats far apart, with the Inflation Reduction Act likely being the biggest point of controversy on this topic between the parties in the upcoming election. U.S. President Joe Biden enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate legislation in U.S. history, in August of 2022. The Inflation Reduction Act is set to invest $369 billion to energy security and climate change, with some of that money already invested, to increase domestic clean energy production and manufacturing and cut carbon emissions by about 40 percent. Though the Inflation Reduction Act was implemented to drive down clean energy costs to further adopt the technology across the country, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the U.S. recently became, for the first time, the largest exporter of liquid natural gas (LNG) in the world, hitting record levels in 2023. However, Biden recently temporarily paused new LNG export permits, likely to appeal to environmentalist voters, though pressure from Republicans may force Biden to reverse his policy. Former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate, plans on “gutting” the Inflation Reduction Act if elected for a second term, according to The Financial Times. The article states, “senior campaign officials and advisers to the former president said he would seek to radically overhaul U.S. climate and energy policy to ‘maximize fossil fuel production’ during a second term.” In his first term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in 2015, the treaty that set many of the guidelines for countries mitigating and adapting to climate change. In Trump’s first campaign, he pledged to revive the coal industry, a stance which likely bolstered his popularity in states like West Virginia and Pennsylvania, where coal mining historically produced many jobs. Despite Trump using approximately $1 billion in taxpayer funds and easing environmental regulation, jobs in the coal industry dropped 24 percent by the end of Trump’s first term. As one of the largest polluters in the world, the outcome of the U.S. election could be detrimental to its climate and energy policy.

The EU, arguably the most progressive governing body on climate change, is holding parliamentary elections in the beginning of June. The European Green Deal was passed in 2020, in response to the U.S.’s Inflation Reduction Act, containing a set of policy initiatives to bring the EU to climate neutrality by 2050. EU incumbents will surely defend these policies upon re-election in June, especially the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, as she seeks re-election for a second term. While it may appear that politicians in the EU are aligned on climate action, a series of protests from farmers in various EU countries show that not all in the EU support its leaders' decisions. Farmers from all EU countries except Austria, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden have taken to the streets in recent months to protest provisions for farmers under the EU Green Deal. These provisions include reduced pesticide and fertilizer use and lower subsidies, which farmers claim will drive up costs as commodity prices have plummeted. Worried over the upcoming election, EU lawmakers have quickly made concessions to farmers following the protests in an attempt to stem rising populist parties’ support. In February, the European Commission scrapped a proposal for a 50 percent cut in pesticides by 2030, with EU states such as France and Germany giving concessions on individual policies. As a result of the farmers’ success, many far-right politicians have begun aligning themselves with the farmers to gain political support in the upcoming election. In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen has used the platform to criticize French President Emmanuel Macron. In Italy, far-right deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini reacted to the EU’s shelving of pesticides restrictions by saying, “Long live the farmers, whose tractors are forcing Europe to take back the nonsense imposed by multinationals and the left.”

Climate and energy policy are also likely to impact June’s Mexican election, which is set to be the largest election in the country’s history and could result in the election of Mexico’s first woman president. The current leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), has reversed the previous openness of the energy market by limiting private investment and prioritizing the state oil and electricity companies, heavily shifting into state protectionism. Under AMLO, the state oil company, Pemex, has racked up $108 billion of debt and continues to decline. AMLO’s preference of fossil fuels over green energy, despite Mexico’s diverse portfolio of natural resources, including lithium reserves, makes the 2024 election critical to climate and energy policy. The front-runner in the Mexican presidential election, Claudia Sheinbaum is an environmental scientist and won the Nobel Prize for co-authoring the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. However, Sheinbaum’s political strategy has led her to uphold some positions of the current president. She encourages a productive state-owned energy company to promote energy security, but she also encourages a low number of energy imports, although second tier to the state-owned companies. Sheinbaum and ALMO differ, however, in that Sheinbaum advocates for a more diverse energy mix to include renewable energy sources, though likely capping private investment, and more ambitious climate goals. Sheinbaum’s opponent, Xochitl Galvez, has run on the platform of increasing renewable energy supply, and has promised to break Mexico’s reliance on fossil fuels. She also advocates for more private participation in the sector and maintains that state-owned companies should be governed by professional independent councils. Despite both candidates wanting to keep state-owned companies as an integral part of its energy policy, it is likely that whichever candidate wins the election in June will incorporate more private investment and increase the supply of renewable energy.