TIME • October 19, 2021
Over the past two weeks, the Mountain State has been at the center of debate over the place of climate change measures in President Biden’s domestic agenda. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has refused to back key climate provisions in Democrats’ spending package. The measures would significantly reduce U.S. carbon emissions, but hurt coal producers in Manchin’s home state. The results of this domestic policy fight will have a global impact, either providing a jolt of momentum in the final days before a landmark UN climate conference set to begin on Oct. 31, or once again planting the question for other leaders why they should redouble their climate commitments while the world’s largest economy drags its feet. With an ambitious climate agenda, clean technologies developed in the U.S. would be adopted around the world as they become cost effective. But many American voters historically have paid little attention to what’s happening outside U.S. borders. So instead of looking at the big picture, the fate of Biden’s climate agenda hangs on a much smaller one: the future of coal in West Virginia.