Quartz

In the US, the climate is changing on climate change.

Though President Barack Obama lavished attention on climate change in both his inaugural address and State of the Union speech, he still has little chance of getting Congress to pass a law limiting carbon emissions. But he could achieve the same goal using regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and he is now in a better position to withstand—and even welcome—the confrontation with the energy industry this would entail, thanks to both economic and political shifts.

The key economic change is the surge in domestic production of natural gas spurred by the growing use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That creates a cheaper alternative to coal-generated electricity and has eased fears that...