U.S. Energy Secretary Biden said Monday that extreme weather events of this summer have elevated the urgency with which the U.S. Energy Department tackles the climate crisis.
But with less than two months to go until the UN Climate Change Conference COP 26 she said the administration has no plans to boost its ambitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in half from 2005 levels, by the end of this decade.
The fact that one third of the country has experienced an extreme climate related event this summer, whether it is wildfires, or hurricanes, or droughts or whatever, that is the exclamation point that we hope the rest of the country sees the urgency of the moment, said Granholm in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live. The plan to reduce emissions is a really bad goal. And it's going to require a full effort, not just all the government, but all the economy. The continued call for climate action comes on heels of a summer marked by extreme weather events.
Nearly 1 - in 3 Americans have been affected by extreme weather in the last three months, according to the Washington Post analysis. Nearly 400 people have died from hurricanes, floods and heat waves, based on government data and media reports obtained by the Post.
With less than two months to go until global leaders gather in the COP 26 in Glasgow, Granholm, along with other administrative officials, are looking at the urgency of the moment to pressure lawmakers to pass key climate legislation in Congress.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill calls for investments in clean energy, including $7 billion to build a national grid for electric vehicle chargers and $27 billion to maintain the national network of vital transmission facilities. The Democratic reconciliation bill, with a $3.5 trillion price tag, calls for a $150 billion investment to improve clean electricity standards.
If we put the right policy pieces in place, we would get to 100% clean electric power by 2035.
The Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP, or DOEP ) proposes clean energy tax incentives by providing grants or payments to utilities companies based on the amount of renewable energy that this firm supplies to customers. That, coupled with a methane fee, would accelerate the shift to clean energy, in line with the timeline set by Biden Administration, said Granholm.
There's a regulatory side and there is the market side, and sometimes the market side is even more powerful because all of these countries as well as other companies have goals to be able to reduce their own carbon dioxide footprints, Granholm said.
Recent studies show yet another market pressure has done little to change the behavior of U.S. oil and gas majors. A report by the financial think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative points to repeated investments in major oil and gas projects are inconsistent with the goals of Paris Climate Agreement. Granholm said however that the administration has no plans to introduce a carbon tax, saying the preference is incentive action rather than penalizing inaction.
We think the most effective tool is the one we've laid out, which is to incentivize utilities to purchase the right ingredients and be able to get to that clean electricity goal, she said. I understand certainly that a carbon tax is something people have been talking about for a long time. It's just not the preferred way of moving in this Administration.
Akiko Fujita is an anchor and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her Twitter on AkikoFujita.com/AkikoFujita.com