When Albert Einstein observed that “politics is more difficult than physics,” he could have been describing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) recently signed by President Biden.

Left-aligned media have praised this bill as the resurrection of the Biden agenda and a landmark that restores US credibility in the fight for climate action. The truth is more complex than the headlines.

Significant compromises were made to garner 51 votes in the Senate, making this bill more a salvage job than a revival of the $2.2 trillion Build Back Better plan.

To secure Joe Manchin’s vote, the IRA authorizes new oil drilling leases for the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Cook Inlet and mandates that the Interior Department must hold auctions for fossil fuel leases if it approves new wind or solar projects on federal lands. It also approved new tax credits for carbon capture projects that attempt to reduce smokestack emissions at coal and gas power plants.

Attempt is the key word, because these costly projects have historically failed their engineering milestones and are not competitive with other carbon reduction options based on dollars per ton of CO2 removed.

Still, $370 billion in climate expenditures over the next decade is a massive change in policy.

Right-aligned media wasted no time expressing their revulsion, particularly to the IRA’s $128 billion in clean energy tax credits and $60 billion in subsidies for solar panels and electric vehicles. The bill also taxes crude oil 16.4 cents a barrel and doubles the excise tax on coal production.

The unstated goal of these taxes and subsidies is to draw capital to renewables instead of fossil fuels. The stated goal is to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The Biden administration says the IRA will enable the U.S. to reduce carbon emissions in 2030 by around 40% below 2005 levels. One messy little secret: most of that reduction has nothing to do with the Inflation Reduction Act.

Unlike most countries, the US has substantially reduced carbon emissions over the past 15 years. This is largely because the fracking revolution replaced a lot of America’s coal with natural gas, which is both cheaper and somewhat cleaner.

According to Rhodium Group, the US is already on track to drop 2030 carbon emissions by almost 30%, even without the new law. With the IRA, emissions will instead decline by over 37%.

Environmentalists are curiously reluctant to connect those emission reductions to global temperatures. While it can be argued that every incremental step is important, the IRA cost / benefit equation looks painful.

According to climate gadfly Bjorn Lomborg, plugging the anticipated emissions drop into the model used for United Nations climate reports reduces global temperatures by only 0.0009-degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century. At a cost of $370 billion, the IRA accounts for 19% of that benefit.

That example assumes the IRA’s emission reductions end when its funding does, after 2030. If you charitably assume emissions reductions will be sustained through 2100, the global impact is still a meager 0.028-degree Fahrenheit. To achieve this, the law would have to be kept intact over the rest of the decade, across four more Congresses and two presidential terms, at a cost well above $370 billion.

Mr. Lomborg argues that rather than emulating Biden’s expensive climate leadership, other countries may move in the other direction. “Three-fourths of all emissions in the rest of this century will come from what are today developing countries, especially China, India, and nations in Africa. These countries couldn’t afford to follow the US lead and drop hundreds of billions of dollars on climate subsidies even if they wanted to. And they have far more important challenges—such as poverty, illiteracy and starvation—that they can tackle far more cost-effectively and with a far greater impact.”

Accelerating adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is the most atmospherically impactful part of the IRA. But even with unprecedented subsidies, several issues may impede the effort.

The immediate obstacle is cost. According to a recent analysis by iSeeCars, EV prices shot up a staggering 54% in the last year, while gas vehicle prices increased only 10%. Conservative media claim that Ford and GM used the $7,500 EV subsidies in the IRA to raise sticker prices $6,000-$8,500. The manufacturers demurred, blaming supply chain difficulties and commodity prices.

Global EV demand is projected to grow sixfold by 2030, and the greatest obstacle to that estimate is supply chain bottlenecks. EV batteries require large quantities of metals like lithium and nickel which today come mostly from countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Russia, China, Chile, Australia) that are either heavy polluters or US political adversaries.

The logical solution would be to develop more domestic mines. Mining under US regulatory standards would improve the environmental impact of the EV revolution globally and insulate this supply chain from political risks.

Talon Metals, a nickel supplier for Tesla car batteries, is attempting to do just that near Tamarack, Minnesota. A panoply of the usual environmental groups, along with Ojibwe tribes whose members live near the proposed mine, are vigorously opposing the project. Identical resistance has hamstrung several attempts to expand domestic lithium mining.

Opposition to the extractive industries upon which the future of decarbonization depends is the Achilles heel of US climate action. For the green agenda to succeed, Democrats must bring the NIMBY factions in their caucus to heel.

Flooding in Pakistan recently submerged 1/3 of the country, costing thousands of lives. The amplitude of devastation was attributed to climate change. Pakistan is downstream from the third largest collection of glacial ice on the planet (after the poles). Despite contributing less than 1% of the historical greenhouse gas emissions associated with human warming, Pakistan faces greater environmental challenges than North America.

The notion that America can continue to offshore the industrial activity that underpins transitioning from fossil fuels is simply 21st century colonialism. Vilified as the Benedict Arnold of the IRA, Joe Manchin just might be the template for successful green politics.

The US regulatory regime for mining is superior to the countries in our current EV supply chains. Utilitarian environmentalists must compromise with the extractive industries upon which the green agenda depends. This could accelerate US decarbonization and tempt some rural, job hungry voters to embrace the green revolution.