By Harvey Michael Carlin, current MSc Media, Power & Public Affairs student, 1 November 2021
Much is being made of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s COP26 no-shows, but the most consequential absentee will be in West Virginia, with an assist from the New York Times editorial board
It is a truism that there are three sides to every story, “my side, your side, and the truth”. However, when it comes to climate policy in the United States right now, there are two. Joe Manchin’s, and the planet’s. Manchin is single-handedly standing in the way of Democrats passing President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill. The bill, while far from perfect, would begin the process of retiring the coal industry. It would also expand in tax support for clean energy, along with electric cars, coupled neatly with curbing methane — a particularly gnarly greenhouse gas. Most satisfyingly for climate hawks, the bill contains a rather complicated Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP). Remember when Cap and Trade policies were all we had to get our heads around? CEPP is essence, will use a mixture of payments and penalties, truly the carrot and the stick, to put pressure on companies to phase out fossil fuels. Thanks to a neat Senate trick called reconciliation, and with the help of the Senate Parliamentarian, Democrats could pass this bill as part of a package with only 51 votes, the tiebreaker coming from Vice President Kamala Harris, bypassing the need for a filibuster-proof 60 votes.
However, Manchin, a Senator who receives thousands in campaign contributions from the energy sector, along with having the majority of his personal assets tied up in a coal brokerage firm, (Thank You, Joe, Very Cool!), does not much like CEPP’s carrot. He hates it so much that he is the holdout Democrat, wanting the climate policies to be watered down or eliminated. Even fellow professional objector and walking primary defeat, Kyrsten Sinema understands that we are staring down the barrel, with ten years to prevent complete climate catastrophe. She seems to get that we are wrestling with the prospect of over 1.5-degree warming in the next decade impacting millions of people. She gets that we are losing.
While the climate consequence of this is a catastrophe in the long term, in the immediate term, it is going to likely force President Biden to arrive at COP26 in Glasgow empty-handed. For the biggest carbon polluter in history, that is, to quote Joe Biden, a big deal. Ok, maybe I’m paraphrasing. The U.S. President has a vital role at these summits. He twists arms, makes deals, and puts pressure on other nations to make significant commitments. Most importantly, he pressures developing nations such as India and China to make sacrifices in their development that America did not make in its own development, in the interest of the planet. Barack Obama had some success with this in 2015 in Paris — Biden needs to repeat that success this time, and more. For him to be arriving empty-handed makes him look hypocritical and weak, it makes it less likely he will be able to achieve his goals. If the U.S. cannot convince China and India, along with Brazil and other developing nations, to make significant commitments for the sake of the planet, our fight for the future may be futile. Leaving us chasing 310 with our middle order and a bowler’s wicket. For Manchin to put parochial political interests ahead of any of this and block the climate bill that Biden could use to pressure these nations is an act of eco-sabotage that will look particularly cruel in the history books.
Why does Manchin do this? It does not seem likely he will be re-elected in 2024, in a state Donald Trump just won by 40 points. He will also be 76 by then, facing another six-year term. The reality is that Machin is incentivised to do this by a broken media system in the United States that often rewards moderation as a form of independence and loves nothing more than to ‘both sides’ every issue —
‘Democrats Say Humans Need Oxygen, Republicans Disagree’.
Many within the mainstream media also constantly fear being accused of having a liberal bias. While some in the press own this more partisan identity, there is a sizeable portion of wannabe “Just the Facts, Ma’am” reporters who fear that appearing overtly partisan will de-legitimise their entire industry. Sidebar, but Facebook also has this fear, and it goes to show just how successful the right has been in scaring societal institutions into toeing the line, lest they be accused of bias(!), and lose viewers to OAN (spoiler alert: they are going to lose viewers to them anyway). As a result of this, editorial desks all across the land have taken to labelling many climate policies as some type of “Liberal Wish List”, “Democrat mega Spending”, or “Activist Demands”. This creates a permission structure wherein Manchin can oppose a critical bill aimed at prolonging human existence on a habitable planet, while the legacy media gives him all the cover he needs to present this as a brave, moderate stance, crowning him as the heir to John McCain, the maverick man. Considering this, it is not surprising that Manchin has never had a hard time finding reporters to speak with, on the record, off the record — Joe Manchin, otherwise known as a Senior Senate Source —, and on deep background. He does not have a hard time securing lengthy Op-Ed where he cries out for civility and begs his colleagues to moderate their demands,
“Oh won’t somebody think of the poor coal miners!"
A love of moderates who provide constant access to the D.C. press corps permeates through entire swathes of the media, as much of a scathing hatred of 5 pm lids. Play the Washington game, and they will build you a reality where you can tank climate legislation that sends Biden to Glasgow empty-handed without feeling a single consequence. It is less the Society of the Spectacle, and more Our Political Society is a Spectacle.
So Biden heads off to Glasgow, with nothing to push other nations with. The Senior Senator from Virginia can watch Murder Xi Wrote in his Manchin, with nothing of value to Putin to COP. Oops. This week’s Politico Playbook can list media access and perforative centrism as its winners of the week, and the losers column can contain the planet. It is a joke. A cruel one, a practical one, played on all of us.
