Dear Neighbor,
These days, it’s tempting to fall into the vicious cycle of cynicism. From armed conflicts across the globe to attacks on our rights here at home, I know it can be hard to hang on to hope. But there are many areas of hopeful progress in our world. And there's one in particular that should give us lots of reason for optimism – climate change.
I know climate change is a topic more often associated with bad news than good, but the reality is that we are making meaningful progress in the fight to protect our planet. I want to take a moment to share with you some facts.
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions dropped by 17 percent from 2005 to 2021, even as the size of our economy doubled. The importance of decoupling emissions from GDP cannot be overstated. It’s no longer true that a reduction in emissions can only be achieved by shrinking the economy. In fact, the opposite is now true – we can reduce our emissions and build a growing clean energy economy that benefits all Americans.
That clean energy economy is already taking shape. Since President Biden took office, more than $350 million in private investments in clean energy have been announced. We’ve created more than 210,000 clean energy jobs over the last 15 months alone, and an additional 1.5 million clean energy jobs are projected to be created over the next decade.
Emissions from electricity generation, which currently account for 25 percent of all emissions, are expected to decrease significantly. The cost of solar and wind power has dropped substantially over the last decade and continues to decline. This year, solar and wind make up 80 percent of new electricity generating capacity. In fact, solar and wind have become so accessible that demand for electricity generated by fossil fuels is expected to peak this decade – a monumental achievement that was unthinkable just a few years ago.
Emissions from transportation are also projected to fall by the middle of the century. Since President Biden took office, US electric vehicle sales have tripled and are now higher than ever before, with a million EVs sold in 2023 so far. That means that 1 in every 10 vehicles sold in the US this year has been an EV. Globally, the news is even better, with EVs making up 1 in 5 new vehicle sales. In places like Africa and Asia, electric motorcycles, mopeds, and rickshaws are already offsetting nearly a million barrels of oil per day.
Methane emissions are also expected to take a sharp downturn in the US. While much of the discussion around climate change tends to focus on carbon emissions, the potency of CO2 emissions pales in comparison to methane. Over 100 years, methane’s global warming potential is 25 times greater than CO2. Thanks to a new EPA rule implemented by the Biden Administration, methane pollution is expected to drop by 80% between 2024 and 2038, which is equivalent to taking nearly a billion cars off the road for a year.
All of this good news is already making a meaningful difference in our fight against climate change. The amount of warming we can expect to experience this century has dropped by more than a degree, from 3.5 to 2.4 degrees. While still too high, we are finally moving in the right direction. For every fraction of a degree that number drops, lives, livelihoods, and habitats will be saved.
I want to be clear – we have much work left to do. We have not yet solved this problem for good. But maybe we should celebrate good news when we can. We are finally moving in the right direction, and it’s important we acknowledge that. Thanks to monumental legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, the single largest climate investment in human history, we are closer than ever before to addressing the threat of climate change and protecting our planet for generations to come.
As always, my team and I are here to help. If we can be of assistance, please don't hesitate to call us at (703) 256-3071.
