Low carbon future = less disease, lower utility bills, more jobs and a higher GDP
New data from Energy Innovation is designed expressly to compare a climate friendly, fossil fuel dependence free and innovative energy policy — the kind of policy we need to cope with climate heating — with the official offering of the MAGA wing of the Republican party.
The study shows, unsurprisingly, that a low carbon energy policy greatly diminishes greenhouse pollution. What’s newsworthy about it is that for the first time the full array of other social, health and economic impacts of energy innovation are laid out — and they are stunningly good news — and the price of rejecting innovation and clinging to fossil fuels as Project 2025 promises is quantified — its shockingly bad news.
The study quantifies three dimensions: health, energy prices and the economy.
On health, even with very conservative assumptions, clean energy leadership translates into sharp declines in US deaths and illness from burning fossil fuels. By 2030 we are saving 3,900 lives a year, and more than 20,000 by 2050.
On energy affordability, where Project 2025 and the coal and oil industries persistently try to blame soaring US energy costs on the transition away from fossil fuels, reality is the opposite. Unsurprisingly, since sun, wind and rain, the key fuels in a clean energy economy, are free, and coal, oil and gas are subject to monopoly price gouging, it turns out clean energy is actually cheaper — a lot cheaper. US energy costs have been rising — and those increases are being driven by price gouging by monopoly utilities and the oil cartel, the main obstacle to more rapid availability of clean energy. The study concluded that pursuing this clean energy more vigorously will cut household energy bills by another $750 by 2050, whereas returning to reliance on coal, oil and gas would raise bills by $240 just by 2030.
On the economy, climate leadership would create “2.2 million jobs in 2030, with an additional 2.2 million jobs in 2050. The Project 2025 scenario reduces deployment of clean energy technologies and lowers growth of U.S. clean energy industries, significantly reducing jobs.” Project 25 in comparison, costs the US economy 1.7 million lost jobs by 2030. To understand the magnitude of this difference, by 2030 alone climate leadership supports 3.9 million more jobs than clinging to fossil fuels — that is more than the number of jobs the United States has lost so far China. And new clean energy jobs keep rolling in until 2050.
Clean energy also brings a significant growth premium: more ambitious clean energy policies increase GDP by $740 billion in 2050, while the Project 25 “cling to the past” energy pathway decreases GDP by $320 billion in a much shorter interval, by 2030. Overall, there’s almost a trillion-dollar benefit to accelerating the energy transition.
Note: all these benefits occur even if, through some miracle, we didn’t have a threat from climate change — of course we do, but even if you are skeptical of the scale and pace of the climate crisis, an energy policy that can but air pollution by a third, increase GDP by a trillion dollars, add more jobs than we have lost to China, and cut household energy bills dramatically is — well, what’s not to like? Unless you are a coal or oil company.