Mark Blyth and Daniel Driscoll at Project Syndicate:
The US sits atop vast reserves of fossil fuels, which have underpinned its national prosperity for decades. They have lit cities, powered factories, stimulated postwar job growth, and forged broad regional political coalitions among labor, agriculture, and corporations. They are also highly profitable commodities, with exports creating global dependence on US supplies (which is especially true for liquefied natural gas following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine). Fossil fuels are a core component of the country’s political economy – and a key factor in US domestic and foreign policymaking.
The Trump administration recognizes this. It includes ideological realists who understand that energy transitions make hegemons – that energy is power. Just as coal drove the industrial revolution in England, oil and gas fueled America’s postwar dominance. Whoever controls energy controls the future.
Unfortunately for the US, if the next energy transition is a green one, the future surely belongs to China, whose green-tech dominance is so firmly established that it does not really matter which metric you look at.
More here.
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