FOR THE FIRST time in history, the full financial weight of the United States federal government is aligned behind an epic transition to clean energy. A trio of energy, infrastructure, and science laws passed by the last Congress will deploy more than half a trillion dollars of public funding over the next decade to wean us off fossil fuels and make greener alternatives cheap and ubiquitous.
Uncle Sam will pick up a huge chunk of the tab for energy sources like wind and solar, and cleaner consumer choices like electric vehicles and heat pumps. Thanks to these new laws, which will also unlock hundreds of billions in private investment in clean energy, it'll simply be the smarter financial decision to choose clean over dirty in the countless decisions made by millions of households and businesses. With the thumb firmly on the clean side of the scale, the fight against climate change in America has fundamentally changed.
And yet the work is just getting started.
I'm a macro-energy systems engineering expert. I've spent the past four years at Princeton leading research teams that have carefully modeled pathways for America to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and analyzed the impacts of proposed and enacted federal climate and energy policy. According to our research, these three laws could roughly double our current pace of decarbonization, leading to an average 4 percent drop in emissions each year through 2030, reducing total emissions to roughly 40 percent of their peak, and to levels not seen since 1967.
This story is from the May/June 2023 edition of Mother Jones.
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This story is from the May/June 2023 edition of Mother Jones.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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In the Name of the Mother - How Shyamala Gopalan Harris raised a presidential contender
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Imagine obamacare is dead and millions of Americans have lost health coverage.
THE ARCHITECT
TRUMP WANTS TO BE KING. RUSS VOUGHT HAS A PLAN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.
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GOD'S COUNTRY
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