WWF’s Marcene Mitchell talks about the path to achieving U.S. climate goals.

On August 6, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 passed the U.S. Senate. The bill will now move to the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote. If confirmed, it will go to President Biden for his signature and approval.
Literally, I was with my staff in the middle of a meeting lamenting the tenuous future of U.S. climate action when I heard about the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. With seemingly little to no chance of reconciliation, and the West Virginia v. EPA decision weighing on the Executive Branch’s ability to act, things looked particularly bleak. Reports surfaced on the climate deal negotiated as part of the Senate reconciliation package, and the change in mood was palpable as the effects sunk in. Democrats had agreed to a bill that could pass the U.S. Senate. It offers more than $350 billion in never-before-made investments that would put the United States on a solid path toward achieving its climate goals.

Among the most important provisions are $9 billion in energy rebates for consumer households. This represents 10 years of tax credits aimed at enabling U.S. households to run on cleaner, more energy-efficient systems, which will save them money. Second, there is the extension of EV tax credits to help Americans transition to cleaner cars. There is also more than $60 billion supporting local clean energy generation, including tax credits for clean technology manufacturing facilities, tax credits to support the development of sustainable aviation fuel. $30 billion is earmarked for supports and loans to states and electric utilities so they can accelerate their transition to clean generation capacity. There is $6 billion to support an advanced industrial facilities implementation program to address emissions from hard-to-decarbonize facilities in the chemical, steel, and cement industries.

In other words, this bill gets to the heart of climate change, carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, and provides significant resources to address those emissions from American businesses, on our roads, and in our communities. The bill also recognizes the role nature plays in responding to the climate crisis. It includes $20 billion for climate-smart agriculture, $5 billion to support wildfire response and forest management, and $2.6 billion to strengthen coastal areas and habitats impacted by climate change. It also includes significant support for communities that are being harmed first and most by carbon emissions and climate change. The package includes more than $60 billion in support for communities facing environmental justice issues.

As much as this bill offers and appears to be optimistic, legislation like this is only the beginning of the journey to address the climate crisis. The bill provides potentially transformative resources to help decarbonize the economy, but it is up to all of us (our businesses, our communities, our institutions, our state and local governments) to do the work to become more energy efficient and reduce emissions. in our daily operations.

The bill doesn’t get us there either: most analyses of the bill’s provisions indicate that, at best, the investments made by the legislation will result in emissions reductions of about 40% by 2030. This is not enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is what science says should be the goal if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. There is also concern that some of the concessions being made for oil and gas production will end up hindering progress rather than promoting it.

The question of gaining enough support for a bill to increase taxes on some of the nation’s largest businesses (those worth $1 billion or more) to pay for these climate investments should not be ignored. While there are business leaders who have signaled their support, other members of the business community have withheld their support on the grounds that they cannot advocate for a tax increase.

Here’s the thing: climate change is a “pay now or pay later” proposition. Companies that think we can continue to postpone climate action at the federal level to avoid any responsibility for its cost have not been paying attention to the costs we are already bearing. In the face of growing multi-billion dollar climate disasters each year, rising fossil fuel prices and increasing supply chain problems, anyone who thinks market conditions won’t get worse as global temperatures continue to rise is kidding themselves.

Companies are already losing money due to climate change. Given the choice between paying a defined tax increase whose proceeds will be used to improve the economic environment and slow the progression of climate impacts or continuing to absorb the runaway increases in costs and continued market volatility created by worsening climate impacts, the choice should not be that difficult.

This bill may not be perfect, but it is the best thing that has come along in a long time, and it is certainly much better than nothing at all. That’s why WWF is urging Congress to pass the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 immediately, and for all of us to get to work implementing the emissions reductions supported by this legislation. Climate change won’t wait, and we can’t afford it either.

From: https://www.worldwildlife.org/descubre-wwf/historias/por-que-necesitamos-la-ley-de-reduccion-de-la-inflacion