We cannot hide from climate change — we must stop producing oil and gas now

From the fires in Lahaina and Los Angeles to the recent flood in Asheville, N.C., America's record-setting weather disasters have several things in common. Communities are not prepared for them, people insist on living in risky places, and cities let them do so in order to gain property tax revenues.

However, the most dangerous denominator is global climate change. It brings killer heat, more intense rains, drier droughts, longer wildfire seasons and warmer oceans that impart their energy to storms. Severe weather is not unusual, but many of today's events are more extreme than any in memory or recorded history.

There is an even deeper commonality in these events. Their newly destructive power results from our use of fossil fuels. The fuels’ pollution includes greenhouse gases that collect in the atmosphere and insulate the Earth, so its surface gets warmer. That changes the weather.

The fossil fuel industries and government leaders who shape national energy policy have known this for at least 50 years. There are no cost-effective technical fixes across the fuels' value chain. The only fail-safe solution is to shift the U.S. and other nations to energy resources that don't pollute.

It would not be the first time we have accomplished a major energy transition. Otherwise, our cars would run on whale oil or wood.

Fossil fuels have dominated the world economy for nearly 150 years. They still provide more than 80 percent of U.S. and global energy, even though scientists proved the causal link between fossil fuels and climate change generations ago. Current science shows catastrophic weather will get much worse — even become irreversible — if we don’t stop using these fuels. Yet many elected leaders are proud that the U.S. produces more oil and gas than any other nation, and the incoming president vows we'll produce even more.

Whether we burn oil, gas and coal here or export it elsewhere, the resulting disasters are orders of magnitude worse for the families that are least prepared for them, least able to afford them, and least responsible for causing them. However, the prevailing attitude among many CEOs and lawmakers is that the only business of business is profit, regardless of social and environmental costs.

In this view, fires, floods, killer temperatures, rising oceans, devastating drought, unsustainable pressures on government spending, uninsurable property destruction and rising consumer prices blamed on "climateflation" are merely the cost of doing business. Oil companies and their lenders and shareholders aren't concerned about collateral damage because they don't pay for it. So, eight of the largest oil and gas companies are "failing to align" with the Paris agreement, putting the world on a trajectory well beyond its limits.

It is becoming more and more apparent that this profiteering is a crime against humanity, a moral crime even if it is not yet codified in statute or treaty.

It's not only the fuel producers who are guilty; it's also the financiers and investors that enable them. At last count, the world's biggest banks have provided the fossil fuel sector with nearly $7 trillion since governments adopted the Paris climate agreement in 2015.

However, legal liabilities are evolving. The International Court of Justice is considering claims by vulnerable nations that fossil fuel production violates international law. When the court asked the U.S. government to respond, our lawyers pointed out that no law or treaty obligates any nation to stop producing fossil fuels. They did not address the moral issue.

The industry and its enablers clearly will not change voluntarily. They must be forced. There are several ways to begin.

Litigation is one. Children in several states and countries have sued governments for jeopardizing their futures by subsidizing fossil fuels. Cities and states have sued big oil and gas companies for climate damages. The number of suits has nearly tripled in the last decade. Yet, although big oil companies are said to be responsible for trillions of dollars in damages to homes, infrastructure and livelihoods, no court has forced the industry to pay.

Market forces are another option. They can encourage consumers to help with the energy transition.

The first step is for the U.S. and other governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels. Instead, 177 nations more than doubled their direct subsidies between 2020 and 2022.

The second step is to make energy prices reflect fossil fuel's social and environmental costs. At last report, 40 countries and 25 sub-national jurisdictions have added a carbon price to the fuels. The U.S. Congress has failed to do so, but two regional carbon-trading programs representing 12 states are operating in the United States. Other states are welcome to join them.

Next, Congress should protect the $370 billion in clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act. Donald Trump wants the money to extend tax breaks that favor the wealthiest Americans. The House Ways and Means Committee calls clean energy incentives "green corporate welfare," ignoring that the oil industry has received tax breaks for more than a century. The difference is that fossil energy subsidies accelerate climate change, while clean energy subsidies help stop it.

In addition, voters must press Congress to reduce the influence of corporate money in elections. The oil and gas industry spent a staggering $220 million to influence the 2024 election. Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, this is the legalized bribery of elected officials.

Finally, the nuclear option is for the U.S. government to take control of big oil companies so it will do what the industry won't: undertake a humane, equitable and orderly transition to clean energy. With years of lying, obfuscation, greenwashing, intimidation and back peddling, the industry has proven it cannot be trusted to help decarbonize the economy. The government has nationalized several industries to save them from collapsing. Now, it's society that's too big to fail.

None of these options is likely to get traction with a president who claims that global warming is a hoax and a Republican-controlled Congress that acts like a publicly owned subsidiary of big oil. Between now and the 2026 midterm election, climate activists should collaborate on an aggressive campaign to educate voters about the link between fossil fuels and weather disasters — and the reality that their communities might be next.

There is no place to run and hide from climate change. The government's latest science assessment is that climate impacts "are already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States." And without deep cuts in fossil fuel pollution, "severe climate risks to the United States will continue to grow."

We should have listened in the past. We will deserve what we get if we don't listen now.

William S. Becker is a former regional director at the U.S. Department of Energy and author of several books on climate change and national disaster policies, including the “100-Day Action Plan to Save the Planet” and “The Creeks Will Rise: People Co-Existing with Floods.”

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