538 #ClimateSolutions #Trump #CleanEnergy
[The point is: you can't count on federal support [but could you ever] Hard work of activists and communities made sure #ClimateSolutions and #CleanEnergy will continue, in defiance of #Trump. Don't despair: get active or support #Local JdeB]
"He’ll try, but Trump can’t stop the clean energy revolution"
by Matt Simon for Grist [Nov 11, 2024] [Audio Available]
https://grist.org/economics/hell-try-but-trump-cant-stop-the-clean-energy-revolution/
Quotes:
"The cost of renewables is plummeting, heat pumps are selling like crazy, and red states are raking in cash from the IRA."
"In his second term, the president-elect is expected to be downright hostile toward clean energy and climate action, having promised to rescind the remaining funding in Joe Biden’s landmark climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA."
"Looking beyond the IRA, Trump has vowed to increase fossil fuel production and once again withdraw from the Paris Agreement."
"A core irony of climate change is that markets incentivized the wide-scale burning of fossil fuels beginning in the Industrial Revolution, creating the mess humanity is mired in, and now those markets are driving a renewables revolution that will help fix it. Coal, oil, and gas are commodities whose prices fluctuate."
"[By contrast,] solar panels, wind turbines, and appliances like induction stoves only get better — more efficient and cheaper — with time. Energy experts believe solar power, the price of which fell 90 percent between 2010 and 2020, will continue to proliferate across the landscape."
"Last year, Maine announced it had reached its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule, in part thanks to state rebates. So if the Trump administration cut off the funding for heat pumps that the IRA provides, states could pick up the slack."
"Local utilities are also finding novel ways to use heat pumps. Over in Massachusetts, for example, the utility Eversource Energy is experimenting with “networked geothermal,” in which the homes within a given neighborhood tap into water pumped from underground. Heat pumps use that water to heat or cool a space, which is vastly more efficient than burning natural gas."
"State regulators are also pressuring utilities to slash emissions, further driving the adoption of wind and solar power. As part of California’s goal of decarbonizing its power by 2045, the state increased battery storage by 757 percent between 2019 and 2023. Even electric cars and electric school buses can provide backup power for the grid."
"Trump could slap tariffs on imported solar panels and thereby increase their price, but that would likely boost domestic manufacturing of those panels..."
"The irony of Biden’s signature climate bill is states that overwhelmingly support Trump are some of the largest recipients of its funding. That means tampering with the IRA could land a Trump administration in political peril even with Republican control of the Senate, if not Congress.
“Something like 66 percent of all of the spending in the IRA has gone to red states,” Hausfather said. “There certainly is a contingency in the Republican party now that’s going to support keeping some of those subsidies around.”
“State governments are going to be the clearest counterbalance to the direction that Donald Trump will take the country on environmental policy,”
"Last week, 62 percent of Washington state voters soundly rejected a ballot initiative seeking to repeal a landmark law that raised funds to fight climate change. “Donald Trump’s going to learn something that our opponents in our initiative battle learned: Once people have a benefit, you can’t take it away,”
"Even without federal funding, states regularly embark on their own large-scale projects to adapt to climate change. California voters, for instance, just overwhelmingly approved a $10 billion bond to fund water, climate, and wildfire prevention projects."
"And not in isolation, because mayors talk: Cities share information about how to write legislation, such as laws that reduce carbon emissions in buildings and ensure that new developments are connected to public transportation. They transform their food systems to grow more crops locally../\..“If anything,” Miller said, “having to push against an administration, like that we imagine is coming, will redouble the efforts to push at the local level.”
"All told, climate progress has been unfolding on so many fronts for so many years — often without enough support from the federal government — that it will persist regardless of who occupies the White House. “This too shall pass, and hopefully we will be in a more favorable policy environment in four years,” Hausfather said. “In the meantime, we’ll have to keep trying to make clean energy cheap and hope that it wins on its merits.”
#StopBurningThings #StopEcoside
#ClimateBreakDown
[The point is: you can't count on federal support [but could you ever] Hard work of activists and communities made sure #ClimateSolutions and #CleanEnergy will continue, in defiance of #Trump. Don't despair: get active or support #Local JdeB]
"He’ll try, but Trump can’t stop the clean energy revolution"
by Matt Simon for Grist [Nov 11, 2024] [Audio Available]
https://grist.org/economics/hell-try-but-trump-cant-stop-the-clean-energy-revolution/
Quotes:
"The cost of renewables is plummeting, heat pumps are selling like crazy, and red states are raking in cash from the IRA."
"In his second term, the president-elect is expected to be downright hostile toward clean energy and climate action, having promised to rescind the remaining funding in Joe Biden’s landmark climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA."
"Looking beyond the IRA, Trump has vowed to increase fossil fuel production and once again withdraw from the Paris Agreement."
"A core irony of climate change is that markets incentivized the wide-scale burning of fossil fuels beginning in the Industrial Revolution, creating the mess humanity is mired in, and now those markets are driving a renewables revolution that will help fix it. Coal, oil, and gas are commodities whose prices fluctuate."
"[By contrast,] solar panels, wind turbines, and appliances like induction stoves only get better — more efficient and cheaper — with time. Energy experts believe solar power, the price of which fell 90 percent between 2010 and 2020, will continue to proliferate across the landscape."
"Last year, Maine announced it had reached its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule, in part thanks to state rebates. So if the Trump administration cut off the funding for heat pumps that the IRA provides, states could pick up the slack."
"Local utilities are also finding novel ways to use heat pumps. Over in Massachusetts, for example, the utility Eversource Energy is experimenting with “networked geothermal,” in which the homes within a given neighborhood tap into water pumped from underground. Heat pumps use that water to heat or cool a space, which is vastly more efficient than burning natural gas."
"State regulators are also pressuring utilities to slash emissions, further driving the adoption of wind and solar power. As part of California’s goal of decarbonizing its power by 2045, the state increased battery storage by 757 percent between 2019 and 2023. Even electric cars and electric school buses can provide backup power for the grid."
"Trump could slap tariffs on imported solar panels and thereby increase their price, but that would likely boost domestic manufacturing of those panels..."
"The irony of Biden’s signature climate bill is states that overwhelmingly support Trump are some of the largest recipients of its funding. That means tampering with the IRA could land a Trump administration in political peril even with Republican control of the Senate, if not Congress.
“Something like 66 percent of all of the spending in the IRA has gone to red states,” Hausfather said. “There certainly is a contingency in the Republican party now that’s going to support keeping some of those subsidies around.”
“State governments are going to be the clearest counterbalance to the direction that Donald Trump will take the country on environmental policy,”
"Last week, 62 percent of Washington state voters soundly rejected a ballot initiative seeking to repeal a landmark law that raised funds to fight climate change. “Donald Trump’s going to learn something that our opponents in our initiative battle learned: Once people have a benefit, you can’t take it away,”
"Even without federal funding, states regularly embark on their own large-scale projects to adapt to climate change. California voters, for instance, just overwhelmingly approved a $10 billion bond to fund water, climate, and wildfire prevention projects."
"And not in isolation, because mayors talk: Cities share information about how to write legislation, such as laws that reduce carbon emissions in buildings and ensure that new developments are connected to public transportation. They transform their food systems to grow more crops locally../\..“If anything,” Miller said, “having to push against an administration, like that we imagine is coming, will redouble the efforts to push at the local level.”
"All told, climate progress has been unfolding on so many fronts for so many years — often without enough support from the federal government — that it will persist regardless of who occupies the White House. “This too shall pass, and hopefully we will be in a more favorable policy environment in four years,” Hausfather said. “In the meantime, we’ll have to keep trying to make clean energy cheap and hope that it wins on its merits.”
#StopBurningThings #StopEcoside
#ClimateBreakDown
He’ll try, but Trump can’t stop the clean energy revolution
The cost of renewables is plummeting, heat pumps are selling like crazy, and red states are raking in cash from the IRA. There's no stopping the inevitable.Matt Simon (Grist)
