Finally, Some Good News on the Climate Front — So Long As We Don’t Let It Go to Our Heads
Don’t take this as an indication all is hunky dory. We are in a climate emergency even though President Biden still hasn’t declared one.
It isn’t typical to read positive stories about the environment these days.
From media outlets brave enough to actually cover climate and use those two words the for-profit media refuses to say — “climate change” — we normally receive headlines like “Extreme Heat Expected to Impact Millions of Americans Again This Summer,” “Temperatures Top 125 Degrees in South Asia; Brazilian Flood Survivors Face Threat of Disease,” “No More Dithering — President Biden Needs to Declare a Climate Emergency NOW,” “The Hottest Day in History Reminds Us Despair Is Not An Option,” and “Five Years May Be All We Have Left to Avoid a Major Climate Tipping Point”. (I wrote the last three.)
But last week was different.
A Guardian piece published Wednesday titled “Increasing use of renewable energy in US yields billions of dollars of benefits” gives us something else to be proud of the same week the tax-dodging former host of Celebrity Apprentice twice-impeached adjudicated sexual assaulter facing 88 indictment counts out on bail is officially now also a convicted felon.
Turns out, having the most pro-environment president in history really does matter. Elections really do have consequences.
According to scientist Dev Millstein from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory:
From 2019 through 2022, wind and solar generation increased by about 55%. By 2022, wind and solar provided roughly 14% of total electricity needs for the US.
The US slashed so much carbon emission in that interval — 900 million metric tons —it achieved the equivalent of removing 71 million cars every year.
That improved not just our outlook regarding climate change mitigation, but also people’s overall health by improving air quality. Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the renewable consulting firm Clean Kilowatts underscored wind and solar power’s role in reducing toxins like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxides, both byproducts of fossil fuel combustion.
While right-wing hate media and its obsequious republican party mocks the climate crisis in deference to its fossil fuel donors with headlines like “Have You Heard About Bee-Pocalypse?” and “Greta Thunberg Takes a Break from Climate Change Activism to Hate Jews,” another study explains how nations the world over no longer need to issue more new oil, gas, and coal licenses since there are enough planned fossil fuel projects to meet global energy demands to the year 2050.
But this can only happen if countries honor their commitments to agreed-upon climate targets, which, sadly appear poised to exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius global heating target.
Two years ago, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres darkly pronounced “I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this… atlas of human suffering” after reading an International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warning of “widespread and pervasive” impacts on all living things from frequent and intense heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods.
The year before that, the IPCC released a report warning Earth faces uncontrollable global warming unless nations take drastic measures to eliminate greenhouse gases, “unequivocally” blaming humans for the crisis.
It concludes that, based on carbon emissions presently in the atmosphere, average global temperatures will likely rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius — 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit — above preindustrial levels by 2040.
Last year, the IPCC released a “final warning” — the last in a synthesis of six reports — that states either we take drastic action now or it will be too late.
Despite its dire tone, though, scientists who authored the report have a positive message.
IPCC chair Hoesung Lee encouraged:
This synthesis report underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action and shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a livable sustainable future for all.
While it’s true every person in the United States — man, woman, and child — contributes about $2,000 a year in fossil fuel subsidies, and while some Democratic politicians — and 100% of republican ones — are sponsoring legislation written to prop up fossil fuels interests, the tide is turning.
We are seeing the difference the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill the Senate passed in 2021 that includes $7.5 billion each for electric vehicle charging stations and zero- and low-emission ferries and buses, including school buses, is starting to make in our communities.
$73 billion is going toward power grid infrastructure.
$46 billion is being put toward flood, drought, and wildfire damage.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) builds on that progress.
It invests about $385 billion in energy and climate change incentives that include tax credits for solar and wind energy equipment production and electric vehicles purchases.
It provides incentives to manufacture new car batteries domestically, and invests hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits for clean energy like solar and wind, clean transportation, and decarbonized buildings.
The new methane Emissions Reduction Program improves methane monitoring, funds environmental restoration, helps communities reduce pollution’s health effects, and increases climate resilience.
Urban parks and resilience for tribal communities are seeing significant funding, including $60 billion in new resources for environmental justice communities’ legacy pollution clean-up efforts, and rural communities will be able to take advantage of lower cost and cleaner energy sources.
The greenhouse gas reduction fund provides low-cost financing for clean energy projects, with at least 60% of the benefits of these investments flowing to disadvantaged communities.
For consumers, this means additional tax credits that encourage purchases of energy efficient homes, electric vehicles, and appliances, reducing energy costs and utility bills.
We’ve seen over the past few years how absent American example and leadership causes other countries to shrug off their environmental commitments.
Since his first day in office, President Biden has been working to either reverse or review the previous administration’s all-out assault on the environment, including establishing the most progressive climate policy in history, demanding the federal government pause and review oil and gas drilling on federal land, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, and electrifying the government’s vehicle fleet.
Taking further inspiration from President Franklin Roosevelt, President Biden last fall signed an executive order creating the American Climate Corps.
Last year, electric vehicle (EV) sales totaled 7.6% of all new vehicles sold. This is an increase from 5.8% the year before. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just helped accelerate EV manufacturing when it announced in April new, and final, automobile emissions standards some officials are calling “the most ambitious plan ever to cut planet-warming emissions from passenger vehicles”.
Meanwhile, the same month, the convicted felon expected to be named the GOP nominee four days after being sentenced promised oil industry executives at an event at Mar-a-Lago that, if re-elected, he would destroy Biden’s fossil fuel regulations.
Don’t take this as an indication all is hunky dory, though. We are in a climate emergency even though President Biden still hasn’t declared one. We must not relent in the leadership we are demonstrating. Doing so would send the message to countries looking to us, one of the world’s top carbon emitters, that it just isn’t worth the expense or effort.