By Karen Rubin, News & PhotoFeatures
Trump is doing all he can to force renewed demand on fossil fuels and derail the transition to clean renewable energy sources. In fact, it is The official policy of the Trump White House is to undermine climate scientists and ignore scientific findings about climate change from its own federal agencies. This not only results in costly destruction to communities and public health, and force dependency on a fuel source that is inevitably more expensive to deliver, but endangers national security, requiring costly military ($700 billion in defense spending!). How ironic after Republicans spent so much effort deriding Obama for incentivizing the development of fledgling solar, wind and other renewable energy industries, that this administration is putting a fist on the scales to bolster enterprises that would otherwise be obsolete. We’re already paying higher prices at the pump thanks to Trump policies.
A year ago, in reaction to Trump pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Accord, 16 states plus Puerto Rico formed the United States Climate Alliance to stay on track to the Paris goals. Trump is doing everything possible to undermine even those efforts. Just last week, when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced all coal-fired plants would be closed by 2020, Trump, in an abuse of power, signaled an executive order to mandate purchase of electricity from coal plants that would otherwise be too uneconomical to operate – akin to forcing purchase of whale oil to block Edison’s electric lights. On top of his climate-denying anti-environment, Big Oil-lackey EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rolling back car standards, Trump’s move to put tariffs on imported automobiles is a way to remove competition from Europe and China that are mandating a shift to electric vehicles.
The European Union, Canada, Mexico and China should retaliate by putting tariffs on all US industries and suppliers that do not adhere to the Paris Climate Accord standards, including US car makers.
On top of saving the planet from life-destroying impacts of climate change, shifting to clean, renewable energy decentralizes energy-production, giving localities more control and uprooting the tyrannical hold of fossil-fuel oligopolies that prop up billionaires like Joseph W. Craft III, and pay for political lackies like Pruitt.
At the one-year anniversary of Trump pulling out of the US Climate Alliance, Cuomo announced new US Climate Alliance initiatives to further progress on emissions reductions, reduce short-lived climate pollutants, expand clean energy financing, drive grid modernization and deployment of renewable energy, improve the energy efficiency of appliances, and increase resilience to climate change. Among them:
Mobilizing Financing for Climate Projects: Alliance states are collaborating on a Green Banking Initiative to expand sustainable infrastructure financing opportunities and help advance new Green Banks. The NY Green Bank is raising $1 billion from the private sector to deploy nationally as well as providing resources and capacity that can be leveraged by newly-established Green Banks.
Grid Modernization: Alliance states are working together on a Grid Modernization Initiative to expand the adoption of innovative approaches to utility planning such as New York's Reforming the Energy Vision (REV). These are non-wires alternatives that meet electricity demand while avoiding build-out of traditional electric transmission and distribution infrastructure, reducing emissions while saving customers billions of dollars.
Renewable Energy: States are collaborating on a Solar Soft Costs Initiative to reduce the costs of solar projects. These steps will lead to better economics for customers and greater solar deployment, while also helping to offset the impact of the solar tariffs established by the federal government in January 2018.
Building Resilient Communities and Infrastructure: The Alliance is partnering with The Nature Conservancy and National Council on Science and the Environment to build greater resiliency of its communities, fundamentally changing the way infrastructure is designed and procured. The states are analyzing their vulnerability to floods, wildfire, and drought to inform mitigation and adaptation planning.
Increasing Carbon Storage in our Landscapes: U.S. Climate Alliance states are pursuing opportunities to increase carbon storage in forests, farms, and ecosystems, and launching a new initiative to identify best practices for land conservation, management and restoration to develop a carbon storage policy framework for implementation. This work is supported through a strategic partnership with The Nature Conservancy, American Forests, World Resources Institute, American Farmland Trust, the Trust for Public Land, Coalition on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases and the Doris Duke Charitable Trust.
Deploying Clean Transportation: Alliance states are collaborating on an initiative to accelerate deployment of zero-emissions vehicles, expand and improve mass transit and active transportation choices, and implement other measures for moving towards zero-emission vehicle miles travelled. (Cuomo just announced a new public-private $250 million electric vehicle expansion initiative, Evolve NY, to build a network of charging stations for electric vehicles).
In the past year alone, New York State has taken some of the largest strides on clean energy and climate in state history. Cuomo’s climate accomplishments include:
Clean Energy Standard requiring that 50 percent of electricity in New York come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2030. The standard is driving unprecedented investment in renewable energy including $1.4 billion for 26 large-scale projects in March 2018.
Offshore Wind: New York issued the nation's most comprehensive master plan for offshore wind in 2018, including an unprecedented commitment to develop up to 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, enough to power 1.2 million New York households. The plan includes procuring 800 megawatts of offshore wind across two solicitations in 2018 and 2019.
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to reduce the cap on power plant emissions an additional 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030.
NY Green Bank: Created the nation's largest Green Bank, which has driven $1.6 billion in public and private investment in clean energy projects now raising $1 billion in private sector funds to "go national."
Energy Storage targeting 1,500 megawatts by 2025 to help integrate renewable energy into the electric grid.
Energy Efficiency: Announced on Earth Day 2018 an ambitious new energy efficiency target to reduce energy consumption equivalent to 1.8 million New York households by 2025.
Coal Free by 2020: Announced in May 2018 new proposed limits for carbon dioxide emissions which will achieve the Governor's goal to end the use of coal in New York State power plants by 2020.
Just last week, at the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, NYSERDA introduced its new Net Zero grant program to encourage localities to undertake capital projects where the annual energy used would be less than or equal to the onsite renewable energy produced. Winning projects could receive 70% of eligible costs up to $1 million, plus a bonus of up to $1 million if in downtown revitalization area, a safe opportunity zone, DEC designated brownfield, or community-adopted stretch energy code.
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