Yet simply adding more renewables to the grid won’t be enough to drive down fossil fuel usage to the extent needed. Even as solar and wind have gotten cheaper and more widespread in the last several years, the share of energy they generate nationwide has remained largely flat. Fossil fuel usage and extraction have each continued to increase and show few signs of slowing down—particularly as the United States becomes a net exporter of fossil fuels. In other words, the good isn’t out-competing the bad. In such a context, placing real constraints on coal, oil and gas companies is the only way to ensure we can reach our climate goals.

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In the climate policymaking world, the standard answer to curbing fossil fuel use has been a carbon tax: If emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were more expensive, both consumers and companies would adjust their behavior accordingly. It’s a soothingly simple theory, but has struggled to gain political traction beyond Beltway wonks and academic economists. Even in deeply Democratic Washington state, voters rejected a carbon tax in a November 2018 referendum. And the belief that a tax alone could wean us off fossil fuels—that once we set a price on carbon, the market will take care of the rest—depends on the assumption that energy markets are free, efficient and hyper-responsive to price tweaks. But, as none other than Energy Secretary Rick Perry has argued, “There is no free market in the energy industry.”

There are more straightforward places to start. One would be by ending the roughly $20 billion in subsidies the U.S. government hands over to the fossil fuel industry each year at the state and federal levels, including longstanding tax giveaways. (Permanent tax breaks to the fossil fuel sector are seven times greater than those awarded to renewables.) In banning new offshore drilling exploration, the United States would follow the example already set by New Zealand. And a Green New Deal could move to end the practice of leasing federal lands and waters to drillers, as well as granting permits for the kind of new infrastructure that allows companies to export oil and gas abroad. These handouts to the fossil fuel industry are so extensive that the Stockholm Environmental Institute has estimated that as much as half of new oil and gas development would be unprofitable without them. Removing the perverse incentives that keep them afloat should be a no-brainer.