Climate Change Legislation: Myths and Reality
Here are some quick “reality checks” on common misconceptions about climate change legislation in the United States.Cap & TradeMyth: Cap-and-trade will cost jobs Reality: climate and energy policy will create renewable energy jobs. Putting a price on carbon will make clean energy industries, such as solar and wind power, more competitive and create jobs in these clean tech sectors. According to a WRI report, the Renewable Energy Policy Project suggests national demand for wind and solar power systems could create more than 30,000 new jobs and more than $10 billion in total investment in the Southeast U.S. alone. Nationally, clean energy jobs have been growing at two and a half times the rate of the jobs overall. Reality: climate and energy policy will create energy efficiency jobs. According to a WRI report, The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy estimates that a 20 to 30 percent gain in energy efficiency across the country could lead to a net increase of 500,000 to 1.5 million jobs by 2030. Reality: climate and energy policy will help keep energy dollars within communities/regions. Using local renewable energy and investing in energy efficiency reduces the amount of energy we import from overseas. For example, the southeast spent more the $1 billion in 2006 on coal imports from Colombia, Indonesia, Poland and Venezuela, according to a WRI report. Greater use of renewable energy would keep those dollars invested in local economies. Reality: climate and energy policy will produce home-grown innovation. The race to create breakthrough clean technologies has already started, and the U.S. is falling behind. Currently, only one of the world’s top five manufacturers for wind technology is American - General Electric. Only one of the ten largest solar panel producers, and two of the top 10 advanced battery manufacturers, are American. By comparison, China’s ambitious renewable energy targets will create 150,000 jobs through the deployment of 120 gigawatts of wind power by 2020 – an amount equivalent to today’s global total.