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# Climate Change Suffers From Reality
- URL: https://goodoil.news/climate-change-suffers-from-reality/
- Published: 2026-11-02T01:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-02T01:00:00.000Z
- Description: Given the choice between policy and politics, there is no choice at all – ironically, even when an outcome advances the policy and the politics Democrats so recently claimed to champion.
- Author: Reproduced with permission
- Tags: USA Politics, World Politics, Energy

[**JT Young**](https://realclearwire.com/articles/2026/10/30/climate%5Fchange%5Ftakes%5Fbackseat%5Fto%5Fpolitics%5F154627.html?ref=goodoil.news)  
*JT Young is the author of the recent book,* Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left.

Democrats’ climate change agenda has taken a backseat to politics.

Although this is clear in general, nowhere is it more so than on Democrats’ focus on higher fuel prices. What once were sought and lauded as means to their climate change goal, are now lamented and wielded as a political cudgel.

While climate change is still used in conjunction with reporting on every adverse weather event, the unwinding of Democratic Party policies that were ostensibly justified as addressing it has gone comparatively unnoticed. Example One is the misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act,” about which President Biden confessed: “It has nothing to do with inflation. It has to do with the $368 billion, the single-largest investment in climate change anywhere in the world, anywhere.” 

But the IRA’s “green” tax credits were ticking fiscal time bombs. Generous and with no cap on how many of these credits could be granted, estimated costs exploded: Initially estimated to cost $270 billion, the estimate doubled to $536 billion, then more than doubled again to $1.2 trillion over 10 years. Others, such as an overemphasis on renewable power rather than an emphasis on reliable power, were predestined to fail. 

Together, the IRA’s costs and failures dovetailed with earlier failures, such as the Biden administration’s 2021 $5 billion program to build EV charging stations that resulted in only seven stations being built in three years. Yet despite these earlier reversals, nowhere has Democrats’ climate change agenda taken a step back more than in this year’s increase in oil and gas prices. 

Economically, oil and gas price increases do have a broad impact. Everything that uses them becomes more expensive and most everything uses oil and gas in some capacity. Prices are also readily discernible: Most buy gas regularly and see gas prices displayed constantly – on virtually every street corner. 

It is natural, therefore, that Democrats would seize on these increases. These dovetailed with, and accentuated, their “affordability” message. They also could be directly tied to the conflict in Iran begun by President Trump in February. Finally, it distracted attention from the fact that inflation, and with it “affordability,” was an issue throughout President Biden’s four years in office – after all that’s why the “Inflation Reduction Act” was affixed to the aforementioned legislation, much to Biden’s own later chagrin.

In short, increased oil and gas prices meant political opportunity and Democrats have taken full advantage. 

Overlooked in what seems so straightforward is that today’s increased oil and gas prices fulfill Democrats’ underlying climate change policy goals. Higher prices reduce demand, and using less fossil fuel is exactly what Democrats’ climate change agenda sought… or at least did until this increase in prices. 

The liberal Tax Policy Center noted at the time that the IRA failed to live up to its climate change potential. Writing of its generous tax credits, the TPC noted: “By contrast, a carbon tax is designed to achieve only one goal: Raise the price of carbon. There are many ways the tax can be returned to households but in any event the tax still would discourage consumption of carbon-based products by raising their relative prices.” 

Democrats have backed all manner of ways to restrict the use of fossil fuels and promote “green” alternatives. These include California’s ZEV mandate, myriad policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, restricting US production of oil and gas, opposing fracking, stifling pipeline development, onerous CAFÉ requirements, EV incentives, and more.

Climate change has been increasingly suffering from its rude collision with reality. The European Union, where the climate change agenda is treated as gospel, and its resulting stagnant economy have hurt. But nothing has had such a chilling effect in America as the opportunity to make a political issue out of increased oil and gas prices. 

Given the choice between policy and politics, there is no choice at all – ironically, even when an outcome advances the policy and the politics Democrats so recently claimed to champion.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via [RealClearWire](https://realclearwire.com/articles/2026/10/30/climate%5Fchange%5Ftakes%5Fbackseat%5Fto%5Fpolitics%5F154627.html?ref=goodoil.news).