Two years ago this week, President Joe Biden signed the strongest climate protection measure in history: the climate and clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act.
It has since become one of the most successful congressional measures in decades, enabling the country to reduce climate pollution and It is driving a manufacturing renaissance in the heart of the country, with clean energy at its core.
No state has fared better than Georgia, which has quickly become a domestic clean energy superpower.
Since the measure was passed, companies have announced a whopping $15.3 billion in investments in new or expanded factories in Georgia to manufacture solar panels, electric vehicles and advanced batteries.
This will put more than 15,000 Georgians to work creating the building blocks of a clean energy economy and further strengthen the clean energy workforce that already employs nearly 80,000 people across the state.
And it sets Georgia workers and businesses up to become winners in the fast-growing global clean energy market, which reached a staggering $1.8 trillion last year alone.
What matters now – in Georgia and across the country – is to build on this progress in the critical years ahead, because our actions or inactions could make the difference between a widening disaster and a climate-resilient world.
Closer to home, the Republican majority in the Georgia legislature and Governor Brian Kemp are more willing to celebrate clean energy jobs than support clean energy itself.
Although Georgia is quickly becoming the epicenter of electric car and battery production, the state lags behind in supporting and, in some ways, even penalizing drivers.
Georgia residents are, of course, eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for new electric cars built in this country and the $4,000 credit for used electric vehicles. However, Georgia does not offer similar state tax incentives as Virginia and 18 other states.
Instead, Georgia charges electric vehicle owners a penalty of $211 per car – in addition to the annual registration fee. In January, Georgia will impose a tax on electricity from public charging stations.
At the national level, this year’s presidential election presents a difficult choice: either push ahead with clean energy investments and job creation, or sit tight and stagnate.
With two decades of leadership in public service on climate action and justice, Vice President Kamala Harris is ready to advance clean energy progress, lead by example abroad, and address the climate crisis with the urgency it deserves from day one of her presidency.
Bowing to billionaires in the oil and gas industry and other major polluters, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has announced he will reverse progress on climate and clean energy.
Every member of Trump’s party in which senate and the House, voted against the popular climate and energy bill two years ago. Since its passage, they have voted to gut it more than 40 times, and the MAGA manifesto “Project 2025” calls for its repeal.
The stakes are too high for that.
This month, people in Georgia and nearly 150 million other Americans were at risk of exhaustion or heat stroke from dangerous heat waves that resulted in 2,300 deaths nationwide last year. the hottest of all time.
We see the results all around us, when the seas rise, Species collapse, Farmland turns into desert And Forest fires, Storms And flea
The Biden-Harris administration recognized the crisis and took action to address it. with climate and clean energy incentives that strengthen the economy, reduce costs for our families, and make the country stronger, fairer, and more energy secure.
To complement these incentives, the Biden-Harris administration has introduced new standards to reduce climate pollution from our nation’s largest sources: Methane emissions from oil and gas activities and carbon pollution from Cars, trucks And dirty power plants.
Taken together and properly implemented, these measures will enable the country to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 56 percent below 2005 levels by 2035.
This is a far cry from what was the case less than four years ago.
As President Trump carried out the worst attack on the White House ever against the environment and public health, turned the fight for a climate-friendly future into a farce and our promise broken for the rest of the world.
He has vowed that if he is re-elected he will achieve even worse results. His game plan, Project 2025is a right-wing roadmap for environmental destruction and a runaway climate catastrophe, a plot so dark that Trump, who once called it “Detailed plans” for his second term, is now trying cover up from the public.
But no one can be fooled.
Trump, who is called Climate change is a hoaxsaid Wind turbines cause cancerand asked the drivers too burn more gasolineHe has promised to eliminate climate and clean energy standards and incentives put in place by the Biden-Harris administration, which would set climate action back at least a decade in a second term.
It is often said that elections are about the future – not about destroying the future, but about improving it. We do this by confronting the climate crisis, not capitulating to it.
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