De regering-Biden wil later dit jaar naar de klimaatconferentie COP 26 in Glasgow gaan met een plan om de uitstoot van broeikasgassen tegen 80 met 2030% te verminderen en tegen 2035 volledig te elimineren. fabrieken in de VS en het vertragen van de bouw van nieuwe op niet-aardgas aangedreven centrales. Op dit moment zijn er plannen om de komende 185 jaar 250 nieuwe gasfaciliteiten in Amerika te bouwen, volgens Vox.
In de VS wordt momenteel 60% van alle elektriciteit opgewekt door verbranding van kolen of gas, 20% door kernenergie en 20% door hernieuwbare energiebronnen zoals wind, zon, waterkracht en geothermie. Het zou intuïtief duidelijk moeten zijn voor de meest oppervlakkige waarnemer dat aanhoudende droogtes het vertrouwen op waterkracht met veel onzekerheid maken.
Een wortel- en stokbenadering
Een norm voor schone energie - een norm die de beleidsinstrumenten biedt om een overgang naar schone elektrische energie aan te moedigen - zou nutsbedrijven belonen die erin slagen aan de norm te voldoen en financiële sancties opleggen aan degenen die dat niet doen. Democraten in het Congres stellen voor $ 150 miljard aan federale fondsen beschikbaar te stellen om nutsbedrijven aan te moedigen hun daad op te ruimen.
Reactionaries see that amount of money and immediately start screaming about how the US can’t afford such largess. It can afford $1.5 trillion tax giveaways to the rich and it can afford to let 20% of corporations escape paying taxes altogether, so such arguments are fatuous at best. Mostly they are simply bleating from members of Congress who depend on the fossil fuel industry to fund their extravagant re-election campaigns.
Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota calls a clean energy standard “the biggest change in our energy policy since the lights went on.” Vox explains that the EV revolution is lowering pollution from the transportation sector but generating the electricity needed to power all those electrified vehicles still pumps million of tons of carbon dioxide, methane, mercury, and particulates into the atmosphere. Coupling the decarbonization of the energy sector with that of the transportation is essential to getting the United States aligned with the emissions reductions it committed to in Paris in 2015.
The clean energy transition has made progress in “an incremental, disjointed way” until now, Pam Kiely, a climate expert at the Environmental Defense Fund, tells Vox. She says Washington is finally recognizing the urgent need for “binding requirements that ensure you get the outcomes you want.”
Het vermenigvuldigingseffect
Climate experts say there is no way to tackle the climate crisis without cleaning up the electricity sector. People may cut their carbon footprint by making their homes more efficient, installing solar panels, or buying an electric car, but coal and natural gas are still providing most of the electricity needed to keep the economy humming. Which means coal-fired power plant may be charging your Tesla, and unnatural gas may be powering the air conditioning in commercial buildings.
“By cleaning up our power sector, we can have a dramatic impact on carbon emissions,” Senator Smith says. “And when we combine that with other policies to electrify transportation, and to electrify building heating and cooling, it has a multiplier effect throughout the whole economy.”
In other words, to seriously slash pollution, the country needs to multitask. As the electric vehicle market booms and buildings upgrade to electric heating and cooling, their sources of electricity will also be modernizing in what could be a virtuous cycle: Electricity becomes a bigger share of US energy use, and clean electricity becomes a bigger share of electricity as a whole, Vox suggereert.
It Pays To Go Green
Some people insist on believing the cost of clean energy is too high (What is it about eliminating the cost of fuel altijd they don’t understand?) The truth is, a clean energy transition would create 500,000 to a 1,000,000 net new jobs before the end of this decade, according to a study from the Andlinger Centrum voor Energie en Milieu at Princeton University. “Job losses in extractive fossil industries are more than offset by an increase in construction and manufacturing in the clean energy sector,” the study found.
Cutting air pollution also translates into the equivalent of $1.7 trillion in benefits from reduced health care costs, economic productivity, and lives saved, according to the climate think tank Energie-innovatie.
Politics & Policies
Reactionaries argue a clean power standard violates free market dogma by permitting the federal government to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. That tired old shibboleth is completely inappropriate, however. The utility industry has been a regulated monopoly operating in the public interest for a century or more. That argument basically says it’s OK to critically damage the environment if there’s a buck to be made.
Some progressives are wringing their hands and arguing the Biden plan doesn’t go far enough, fast enough. They also object to investing federal dollars in technologie voor het afvangen van koolstof that has never been proven to work. It is yet another variation of the ongoing campaign by fossil fuel interests to find a way — any way — to continue extracting, transporting, and selling their death dealing products. It’s a scam just as much as the “blue hydrogen” bait and switch plan the industry is desperate to pass off on society so it can continue polluting the environment with impunity.
Sam Ricketts of Groenblijvende actie dismisses concerns over the cost of a clean energy standard. “We know there’s a cost to this energy transition. If we want to make the clean energy transition happen, we need to ensure investments reach every region and benefit every community.” He terms the clean energy standard “a progressive, job creating policy to drive an effective clean electricity transformation over the coming decade.”
Since the US rejoined the Paris climate agreement in the early days of Biden’s presidency, Democrats have committed themselves to showing the world America is committed to its climate change goals by bringing a strong clean energy standard with them to Glasgow. Democratic leaders acknowledged as much in a press conference last Wednesday. “My great hope is that we go to Glasgow with a great climate bill that will demonstrate our commitment to our Paris objectives,” said California Rep. Mike Levin, one of 134 House representatives who signed onto a letter calling for 100% clean electricity by 2035.
Senator Smith also sees this as a make or break moment: “I don’t see how you can reach our climate goals, nor how you can reach our goals for creating clean energy jobs and for creating a healthier, more equitable economy, without this kind of bold policy.”
In light of the latest IPCC 6 climate report, the time to dramatically reduce emissions is now. If the US fails to lead on lowering emissions, other nations will find it easier to kick the can down the road themselves. As President Kennedy told us, “We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard.” A great nation cannot afford to shirk its responsibility to its citizens and to the world community.
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