Politics can be frustrating. Actually, it’s more like politics ARE frustrating, especially in America and especially in 2013, where a constitutional system designed for maximum gridlock has met intense partisanship fed by the nano-second news cycle of social media. Right now the government of the United States seems wholly incapable of getting out of a self-designed trap to needlessly slash billions of dollars in spending and cut hundreds of thousands of jobs at a moment when the American economy is beginning to pick itself off the floor. (You may know this as sequestration.) And this comes just a few months after we nearly tipped over the fiscal cliff, which at least had a much snazzier name than sequestration. Meanwhile the nominated Secretary of Defense floats in limbo at a moment when the world is, well, pretty unstable, all because a few senators are in a snit. Political dysfunction forms the backdrop of our days. What does this mean for climate policy? Well, if the government can’t get itself together to deal with the much more immediate threats of sequestration, properly responding to a long-term and highly complex challenge like climate change has basically entered the realm fantasy. This is especially true when one of two political parties refuses to acknowledge the problem exists. There was a chance in 2009 and 2010 with comprehensive climate legislation, but that died for countless reasons. And while there are executive actions or EPA regulations that could begin to address carbon emissions, we really need more ambitious legislation. And that simply seems impossible. So it shouldn’t be surprising that in the wake of cap-and-trade’s death a few years ago, some climate advocates began to plot another line of attack, one that wouldn’t break the political deadlock so much as sidestep it altogether. It’s energy innovation—policy, to put it simply, that focuses on making clean energy cheap, rather than making dirty energy expensive through a carbon cap or regulations. You don’t have to worry about trying to outflank the coal industry or convince that Midwestern Democratic … Continue reading Why Innovation Alone Isn’t Enough to Win the Climate Fight