The US Is the Last Big Petrostate

In a conversation with economist Paul Krugman, climate journalist David Roberts asserts that the United States and China are going in different directions in energy, one forwards and one back.

One of the grand international stories right now — though it’s very hard when you’re in the midst of as much chaos and insanity as we are to get clear about the big narratives — is that the US is basically aligning itself as the last big petrostate. We’re going to go down with the fossil fuel ship, and China is aligning itself as the first electrostate. It is rapidly electrifying its economy, and it is dominating the technologies that enable an electrostate: batteries, EVs, etc., all that stuff. So where do you think the future lies?

All these emerging nations right now are stuck on coal. The story the US is trying to tell you is “shift to LNG. It’s cleaner than coal.” You’ll get some emission reductions. And then, basically, you’ll become dependent on our LNG. And for emerging nations, that’s an enormous 50 year investment program. They’re thinking now, “well, where is the energy situation going to be in 50 years? Do we think that fossil fuels are going to win in 50 years?” By launching this war, I think we have accelerated the process of pushing emerging nations into China’s arms and faster toward clean energy. That’s going to be the big effect of all this.

• climate crisis
• David Roberts
• energy
• Paul Krugman