Jeffrey Sachs writes:

Four interconnected pieces of climate change-related news from the past two weeks reveal America’s predicament. And they also show the way forward, which ultimately must include oil companies’ paying restitution for damage that they have done to the climate and humanity for decades.

The first of the four pieces of climate news is the deadly heat wave hitting the western US and Canada, killing hundreds to date. According to the United Nations, there has been a “staggering increase” in the frequency of such extreme climate events. The earth is now warmer than at any time in the past 12,000 years.

The second is President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan. The Biden plan aims, in part, to join with other nations to build a new 21st-century infrastructure based on renewable energy, electric vehicles and other zero-carbon technologies in order to stop human-induced climate change. To achieve the global aim of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the world’s energy system should be decarbonized by 2050, along the lines described in a recent report by the International Energy Agency on achieving net-zero by 2050.

As usual, Republican leaders lined up against the parts of the plan aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared, “The total amount of funding it would direct to roads, bridges, ports, waterways and airports combined adds up to less than what it would spend just on electric cars,” and that “The far left sees a strong family resemblance between these proposals and their socialist ‘Green New Deal.'” The GOP was joined by Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, whose campaigns are amply funded by the oil and gas industry and coal mining. [Continue reading…]