2023 in charts, graphs, and memes

Dec 31 closing argument – In case you missed the earlier messages and details, here’s my closing argument for the year:

1. We did a lot of amazing stuff in 2023, you were one of the people who helped us do it so thank you! Click here to read our year in review message.
2. One of the most important things we did was challenging the connection between fossil fuels and fascism – including our fight to get Trump and his dirty energy enablers barred under the Constitution’s 14th amendment. That tactic (the 14th amendment) and strategy (predicting how fossil fuels lead to fascism) have been in the news a lot this month. Click here to read all about it.
3. That was just one of the big trends we can back up with data (and charts and graphs) this year. Some others include:
   1. It was a big year for Renewable energy, electric cars, and other climate solutions – yay!
   2. A lot of the work being done is PRO-renewable, but it’s not ANTI-fossil fuel, which is a problem. 
   3. It’s a problem because climate pollution from new fossil fuel infrastructure, and especially new fossil fuel exports, are more than offsetting the pollution reductions President Biden has been able to make so far. 
   4. And that’s why we’re relentlessly focussed on getting Biden (and other leaders) to declare a climate emergency and end the era of fossil fuels fast, fair, and forever. You can read all about it below.

Thanks again for all your support this year. Please donate before midnight tonight. All donations are tax deductible, and essential to powering our work in 2024.

Dec 28 2023 – Several years ago, I started the tradition of an annual charts and graphs email to wrap up the year. The motivation was simple: there are always a bunch of new climate change reports (with charts and graphs) at the end of the year to go with the annual COP meetings.

Those reports, and especially the charts and graphs, help people get the basic status of the crisis at a glance: emissions are up, the gap between what we pledged to do in 2015 with the Paris climate Agreement and what we’re actually doing keeps getting wider, etc. But doing it at the end of the year as a recap lets us focus on more than just the datapoints, it helps us put the year into context.

It’s also because we’re not a research group – we’re a direct action group. But many years ago I fell in love with a slogan I saw on a friend’s refrigerator that said “Don’t mess with us, we’ve got charts and graphs to back this sh*t up.” And so in that spirit I’ve carried on releasing an annual charts and graphs email every year to make the point: There is real evidence that demands radical direct action to confront the climate crisis.

As usual, there’s a lot of stuff crammed into this message, some of it repetitive of our annual written recap. So here’s a TLDR video and recap, followed by a longer version with links to all the sources. And, also as usual, this is our last fundraising message of the year – so if you see this and agree that the data supports an aggressive, anti-fascist, non-violent, direct action campaign supported by digital tools and tactics, chip in $1.98 or more to keep us goin in 2024.

Quick recap for busy inboxes:

• 2023 started and ended with a fight against fossil fueled fascists. But what the year was really about was fossil fuels and the persistent forces that keep the planet hooked on them.
• Right from the start of the year we were talking about two “gaps” or disparities:
  • The production gap, which is about the world, and especially the US, producing more fossil fuels than we can afford to burn without supercharging the climate crisis.
  • And the finance gap, which is about big banks and investors who continue to give money to fossil fuels and related projects (like carbon capture and sequestration) far in excess of what we can afford to meet our emissions reduction goals, or what those same lenders and institutions say is their goal of “net zero” emissions by 2050.
• Those gaps are persistent, despite the fact that we are making progress on renewable energy and switching our economy to run on it. Renewable energy is booming, electric vehicle sales (cars, bikes, rickshaws and more) are up, and heat pump sales are getting a boost right now thanks to last year’s big DPA win.
  • But our concern is that a lot of this year’s progress is flowing from last year’s progress, like the Inflation Reduction Act. It’s PRO-renewable, but it’s not ANTI-fossil fuel, or anti-fascist.
• And that’s a problem because all through 2023 President Biden kept picking the side of fossil fuels (like the Willow Arctic Oil project, the Alaska LNG project, the MVP etc) and fossil fuel fascists (Manchin, negotiating with McCarthy or whoever runs the MAGA house these days etc).
• So starting late in the summer, we tried our best to box Biden in – starting with general demands in September to end the era of fossil fuels. Big marches, rallies, and direct actions in New York and San Francisco, and more, took aim at the production gap and the finance gap. It made an impact on the public conversation and in how people around the world talk about climate change – most famously by getting the COP28 negotiators to agree to phase our fossil fuels.
• Late in the year a bunch or new reports and data came out that Biden and the US’ real problem was with new fossil fuel infrastructure and exports, in particular. So we’ve narrowed in on that, and the CP2 export facility in particular, right at the end of the year.
• And finally, we came right back to fossil fuel fascists as Trump resumed a dominance of political headlines with new fascist talking points and plans; And at the same moment international allies from Ukraine made the point we’ve been making in the US, which is that there’s a direct causal link between fossil fuel exports and fascism.
• Onward to 2024!

The long version

As I said at the top- part of the mission of this annual message is to re-frame the year not as a series of dates and actions (that’s what our earlier recap was for) but to tease out the themes and trends. And that’s why I say that 2023 started and ended with a fight against fossil fueled fascists. But what the year was really about was fossil fuels and the persistent forces that keep the planet hooked on them.

Right from the start of the year we were talking about two “gaps” or disparities: The production gap, which is about the world, and especially the US, producing more fossil fuels than we can afford to burn without supercharging the climate crisis. And the finance gap, which is about big banks and investors who continue to give money to fossil fuels and related projects (like carbon capture and sequestration) far in excess of what we can afford to meet our emissions reduction goals, or what those same lenders and institutions say is their goal of “net zero” emissions by 2050.

Those gaps are persistent, despite the fact that we are making progress on renewable energy and switching our economy to run on it. Renewable energy.

Renewable energy, especially solar, is booming here in the US and around the world, and despite some nattering nabobs a lot more people are switching to electric vehicles for transportation. Electric heating, aka Heat pumps, are also taking off as a result of one of last year’s big victories – getting the Biden Administration to use the defense production act to build an arsenal of heat pumps and renewable energy.

There are some consistent problems though: the renewable energy development is almost all utility scale – which we do need. But a lot of those projects are still getting caught in “interconnection cue” backlogs and other “permitting reform” issues. A solution to those problems is probably years away as FERC continues to delay action and Congressional legislation remains stuck, despite out best arguments. And a ton of state and local laws being celebrated as “100% clean” energy wins are (predictably, and as we predicted early this year) following the model of the Inflation Reduction Act – meaning they also subsidize fossil fuels (especially methane gas), rely on false solutions like carbon capture and storage,

More to the point distributed, residential scale solar +. batteries are a much cheaper, more efficient, and effective solution. But our biggest concern isn’t which renewable energy is getting built. We need a lot more of it, at every scale and in every region. Our concern is that because this is flowing from the Inflation Reduction Act it’s PRO-renewable, but it’s not ANTI-fossil fuel, or anti-fascist. You could also say that it’s moving electrons, but not moving power.

And that’s a problem because all through 2023 President Biden kept picking the side of fossil fuels, and fossil fascists. He picked the side of fossil fuels when he approved the Willow Arctic Oil project, followed quickly by the Alaska LNG export terminal, and drilling project after drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico. And he picked the side of fossil fuel fascists when he signed a deal with Manchin and MAGA speaker McCarthy over the debt ceiling. But those were just the biggest decisions – Biden refused to support young people suing for a livable climate in court; his EPA backed out on an environmental justice deal in Louisiana, and later sold out the same communities for carbon capture false solutions; refused to shut down Line 5, or DAPL, or Line 3.

For the first part of the year, we focussed on solutions, and cur through the noise of the Biden Administration’s many protestations that they did care about the climate crisis and were acting on it with a focus on environmental justice. Environmental justice is a clarifying lens into policy choices – especially at the individual agencies that have to administer these things like FERC and the EPA.

Fossil fuels and fascism work together because they’re both extractive – there’s never been a fascist policy or a fossil fuel project which was literally “good for everyone.” Someone always gets polluted, has their land stolen, or gets targeted for death, disease and destruction. So when we call on agencies and lawmakers to consider and address Environmental Justice – essentially just to consider and account for the harms on marginalized groups like racial minorities, or indigenous people, or women of color – it’s tremendously clarifying. Just ask any regulator or law maker about how a specific policy – like tax credits for solar panels, or mandating the construction of power lines – effects environmental justice: their answer will tell you a lot about whether they’re on the side of people and the planet, or power and corporations.

But by the middle of the year, it was clear we were losing a lot of those fights – at FERC, the EPA, the Department of Energy, and especially at the White House. And as the hottest summer in history became the inevitable breeding ground for climate disaster after disaster, we changed tactics (though of course we’ll always keep commenting on dockets, rules and legislation and asking about justice).

Starting late in the summer, we tried our best to box Biden in – starting with general demands in September to declare a climate emergency and end the era of fossil fuels. Big marches, rallies, and direct actions in New York and San Francisco, and more, took aim at the production gap and the finance gap. It made an impact on the public conversation and in how people around the world talk about climate change – most famously by getting the COP28 negotiators to agree to phase our fossil fuels.

And at the end of the year a bunch or new reports and data came out that Biden and the US’ real problem was with new fossil fuel infrastructure and exports, in particular. So we’ve narrowed in on that, and the CP2 export facility in particular, right at the end of the year. And finally, we came right back to fossil fuel fascists as Trump resumed a dominance of political headlines with new fascist talking points and plans; And at the same moment international allies from Ukraine made the point we’ve been making in the US, which is that there’s a direct causal link between fossil fuel exports and fascism.

So that’s our data driven recap! I hope you’ve enjoyed it and maybe grabbed some charts graphs and images to re-use in your own advocacy. If you like what we do, how we do it, or just appreciate data-driven, digitally-powered, anti-fascist, and anti-fossil-fuel non-violent direct action, chip in $1.98 to keep us going in 2024.