Merkley: ‘We Should Have a Climate Emergency’ and Need to ‘Have the World Transition’ to Green Energy to Undercut Russia

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) argued that in order to undermine Russia’s power, we have to “end our dependence on oil and have the world transition to renewable energy.” Because Russia will be able to sell oil as long as there’s demand for oil, and called for a “climate emergency.”

Merkley said, “As long as there is a world market for oil, Russia will be able to sell its oil. And so, unfortunately, not all my colleagues yet understand that the way to undercut the power of Russia is to end our dependence on oil and have the world transition to renewable energy.”

He continued that decades ago, we didn’t know about two things: “One was [the] tremendous climate impacts of burning fossil fuels. And the second is, renewable energy was very expensive at that time, as compared to fossil fuels. Now, it’s cheaper. So, we have every reason to pivot quickly. We should be having a national American solar program. We should have a climate emergency. We should be transitioning to offshore wind, and we should be doing it in partnership and leading the world in this effort to end this addiction to oil, this damage to the climate, and the enrichment of people like Putin.”

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