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What will it take to reduce the emissions of the formidable power, buildings, transportation, and agriculture industries? It will require hundreds of wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, and storage batteries. The production of these industries, in turn, will require water, energy, rare earth elements, and critical metals to produce, creating more emissions from production. Is this progress toward decarbonization achievable? Absolutely. But it will take a steel will and a belief in the future to overcome the election nastiness around renewable energy.
The 92-page Democratic platform prioritizes growing the economy from the bottom up and the middle out and focuses on addressing the climate crisis. It contains a strong commitment to climate action, saying, “We’re fighting climate change, reducing pollution, and fueling a clean energy boom.”
Meanwhile, companies like ConocoPhillips and CEOs like Tim Dunn have donated more than $20 million combined in the third quarter of this year to the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) and the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), according to a Sludge analysis of quarterly filings posted this week to the Federal Election Commission. Fossil fuel interests like these are spending tens of millions of dollars in swing-state races to hold back the evolution to renewable energy adoption.
Setting aside the election nastiness that surrounds us in the US, there will be significant differences in how climate action is or is not enacted, depending on which parties win the executive office and Congress.
Don’t make America regress in its energy portfolio: If Donald J. Trump is reelected as US President, he’ll do his best to dismantle investments and standards that are helping the industry move into the EV market. The automotive industry recognizes that its own future lies in electrifying everything in its catalogs. The climate advocacy group, Evergreen wrote a letter to the CEOs of America’s automakers, demanding that they commit to electrification, no matter who wins the election and no matter what new right-wing doctrine the Court makes up. They say that the market for zero emission vehicles is growing in the US, courtesy of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and standards from California and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Go, Renewables! While it is a long way short of requirements of the Paris Agreement, we are at the beginning of a “prolonged period of decline for the first time since the industrial revolution,” according to DNV’s Energy Transition Outlook. The Outlook forecasts that the planet will warm by 2.2 °C by the end of the century. This is largely due to the success of solar and batteries, but that success is not replicated in the hard-to-abate sectors, where essential technologies are scaling slowly. Wind is also an important driver of the energy transition, contributing to 28% of electricity generation by 2050. Offshore wind will experience 12% annual growth rate, although the current headwinds impacting the industry are weighing on its growth.
Decarbonization on a global scale: Emissions are set to be almost half by 2050, according to DNV data. Electricity use by then will double, which is also at the driver of energy demand only increasing 10%. The energy mix is moving from a roughly 80/20 mix in favor of fossil fuels today to one which is split equally between fossil and non-fossil fuels by 2050.
The China syndrome: China is dominating much current global action on decarbonization, particularly in the production and export of clean technology. GOP candidates have been framing EVs as a win for China, which controls much of the worldwide market for critical minerals used in their manufacture. Democrats say the Inflation Reduction Act is aimed at reducing China’s influence.
The need to decarbonize the transportation sector: Even with the increase in renewable electrical generation, transportation has become the highest emitting sector of the US economy, accounting for about 29% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Light-duty vehicles, including cars and small trucks, account for about 57% of transportation emissions. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks contribute an additional 26%, while buses and motorcycles combined add approximately 1–2%. Altogether, ground vehicles are responsible for approximately 84–85% of total transportation emissions. Progress on this has been slow, with the US lagging significantly behind other major regions in adoption of electric vehicles of all scales.
Electric vehicles are the future: The global transition toward electric vehicles will have “far-reaching” impacts on investment, production, international trade and employment, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday as part of its update to global economic growth forecasts. According to Politico, though, some Republicans are misleadingly tying EV tax subsidies to reductions in Medicare payments to drug companies. There’s also the misstatement about the Biden-Harris administration mandating electric vehicles. While EPA is not outright banning gasoline-powered cars, the agency estimates the strict regulation could result in more than half of newly sold cars being zero-emission vehicles by early next decade.
Automakers need to stand by their working men and women: Automakers have been hedging their original bets on transportation electrification, realizing that a serious learning curve is necessary to move from concept to prototype to working model. The IMF notes that the global automotive industry stands out for having high wages, strong profits, large export markets, and using a high degree of technology. Workers in the automotive industry and communities who depend upon it need automakers with the cajones to take a tough stand on EV evolution — or other countries will suffocate them. On Friday, during a stop with members of the United Auto Workers, a union that had held off on supporting President Joe Biden’s reelection bid over the potential labor impact of pro-EV policies, Harris said, “We will ensure that the next generation of breakthroughs, from advanced batteries to electric vehicles, are not just invented, but built, right here, in America, by American union workers.”
Fleets are in the right place to go electric: “There’s never been a better time for fleet electrification,” a new RMI analysis finds. Across a range of scenarios, it’s cheaper to own and operate light- and medium-duty electric vehicles than gas-powered vehicles, making a strong business case that now is the time for private and government-owned fleets to make the switch. Battery electric vehicle costs have been declining for years, and incentives from the federal Inflation Reduction Act provide additional support, reducing upfront vehicle and charging installation costs for millions of vehicles and bringing total cost of ownership into cost parity or better.
Final Thoughts About Election Nastiness & The Climate
Our CleanTechnica colleague Tina Casey recently suggested that electric vehicles win, one school bus at a time. The positive transition to EVs is arising to a significant degree due to improved battery and charging technology — batteries are being manufactured with less energy, have greater charging capacity, and will be more able to be recycled. Let’s share those kinds of messages right now, in a media world filled with election messiness. It’s the right thing to do for the US and the planet.
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