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Biden Inflation Reduction Act is a win, but climate change isn't over - USA TODAY

Biden Inflation Reduction Act is a win, but climate change isn't over - USA TODAY

Biden Inflation Reduction Act is a win, but climate change isn't over - USA TODAY
Aug 12, 2022 3 mins, 19 secs

House expected to pass the most consequential climate change legislation in the nation’s history on Friday, environmentalists and advocates are chilling the champagne for a surprise victory.

Just a month ago, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 appeared doomed after an apparent breakdown in Senate negotiations.

As remarkable as the turnaround has been, the promise of the Inflation Reduction Act was never meant to solve climate change on its own.

“I’m more optimistic than I’ve ever been,” said Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a nonprofit that ranks the importance of climate solutions.

More: 'Shouting distance': That's how close the Inflation Reduction Act would get US to its climate goals.

So is Robbie Orvis, senior director of energy policy design at the San Francisco-based climate think tank Energy Innovation.

“Let’s focus on the 80 to 90% we know we need to do,” Orvis said.

In April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that humanity is perilously close to already baking in 1.5 degrees of warming, which would likely lead to a significant rise in the numbers of droughts, heat waves, and extreme storms devastating communities across the globe. .

Saha said that creates a need for the Biden administration to quickly follow up the bill with regulations forcing greenhouse gas reductions in sectors of the economy like energy generation and transportation. .

“Tax credits are doing their function, but they cannot be a solution to every barrier and challenge,” Saha said.

It’s game on,” Foley said.

Despite a growing sense of climate doom in many corners of American society over the past decade, Orvis said something good was happening all along.

emissions have decreased by one-fifth since 2007, Environmental Protection Agency data shows. Even without the Inflation Reduction Act, modeling by Energy Innovation shows those reductions would have likely reached nearly a quarter by 2030.

could hit up to 41% reduction by the end of the decade, driven largely by switching commercial energy generation from gas and coal to wind and solar.

“Broadly speaking, a lot of the reductions we (modeled) for 2030 are from the power sector, and that overlaps pretty nicely with what we’re finding” in the Inflation Reduction Act, Orvis said.

Seeds planted by the Inflation Reduction Act should be blooming in these sectors after 2030, Orvis said.

Government likely will need to step in to require the phaseout of fossil fuel-based technologies by 2050, but Orvis said that should be made more palatable and affordable by the advances.

“It’s going to set up the U.S., through all of the investment in manufacturing and clean energy, to be able to deploy at scale the solutions that are needed through 2050 to get us to that net zero.”.

“China sees the writing on the wall,” Foley said.

venture capital was spent on clean energy technologies, Foley says, which is more than the $40 billion to $45 billion the Inflation Reduction Act will average a year over the next decade.

The competition will accelerate an already existing global trend that has made solar the cheapest form of energy on the planet, Foley predicted.

He said there is a lot to like about the Inflation Reduction Act.

“I think it’s a very positive development, to give stronger momentum to renewables and climate solutions in the U.S.,” Gielen said.

Gielen said the lack of new energy infrastructure presents a major problem.

Developing nations in Africa could see the West wavering and decide against prioritizing climate, Gielen said.

Many analyses predict the clean energy transition will create millions of good-paying jobs, but Saha wonders if there will be enough workers to fill them.

More: 'Big problems': The Supreme Court handcuffed EPA on climate change

“Most climate solutions are going to beat fossil fuels in the market

Kyle Bagenstose covers climate change, chemicals, water and other environmental topics for USA TODAY

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