what is the government doing to stop global warming
Last year'south report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic change sounded the alarm: The world has until 2030 to implement "rapid and far-reaching" changes to our free energy, infrastructure and industrial systems to avoid 2 degrees Celsius of warming, which could be catastrophic. But the scale of the challenge tin appear so overwhelming that information technology's difficult to know where to first. The Mail asked activists, politicians and researchers for climate policy ideas that offer hope. Radical modify from one country, or even the whole United States, won't address climate modify on its own, only taking these actions could assist start the planet down a path toward a meliorate future.
11 policy ideas to protect the planet
- Set local emissions goals
- Be smart about your air conditioner
- Encourage electric vehicles
- Exist smart most nuclear power
- Get in easier to live without cars
- Forbid wasted food — the correct way
- Incentivize carbon farming
- Curb the effects of meat and dairy
- Adopt a carbon tax
- Open electric markets to competition
- Pass a Green New Deal
- Illustrations by Tom Toles/The Washington Post
Set local emissions goals
By and
In June 2017, the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors passed a resolution recognizing the risk and threats of failing to draw downwards carbon emissions. As a local government in Pennsylvania, the tertiary-largest greenhouse-gas emitter in the The states despite having a right to a clean environment guaranteed in its state constitution, nosotros knew nosotros had to deed. Our resolution calls for carbon neutrality as soon as feasible merely no later than 2050.
is the chair of the Ferguson Township Lath of Supervisors. is the chair of the Ferguson Township Climate Action Commission.
Passing the resolution provided the opportunity and, arguably, the imperative to integrate emissions impacts into all township decision-making. Past setting such a goal at the local level, governments tin can figure out what solutions fit their community'due south needs and work within their state's legislative landscape. For Ferguson Township, this has meant 100 pct wind power, designing a LEED Golden public works building, working on zoning changes to incentivize dark-green edifice, low-impact stormwater infrastructure, and working with local schoolhouse kids, teachers and families to constitute trees.
Ferguson Township also created a Climate Action Committee that has conducted a municipal-wide greenhouse-gas inventory. Inventorying emissions establishes a credible baseline from which we tin can mensurate our progress. Only equally important and less hands quantifiable benefits lie beyond this policy'south tangible and anticipated outcomes. Effective climate action plans crave that residents, public officials, businesses and other stakeholders cultivate trusting working relationships with one another. The policy directive created the inspiration and framework for change, but all of us in Ferguson Township must comprehend it and have action to accomplish results.
Be smart most your air conditioner
Past
Air conditioners have a high impact on the climate, both in the energy and refrigerants they utilise — super greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons. HFCs are curt-lived pollutants, merely they take an bear on on global warming that's hundreds to thousands of times more potent than that of carbon dioxide past mass. Yet as the world gets hotter, air-conditioner need is growing, with experts projecting we'll have four.5 billion units by 2050, upwardly from about 1.2 billion today. Some states, including California, are taking action to address this problem now.
is the founder and president of the Plant for Governance & Sustainable Evolution.
Globally, a phasedown of HFC refrigerants could avoid up to 0.v caste Celsius of warming by 2100; the Montreal Protocol at present requires countries to reduce the use of these chemicals starting in January. Parallel efforts to improve the efficiency of air conditioners can double this climate benefit, with the potential to avert up to a full degree Celsius past the end of the century.
In addition to buying only super-efficient air conditioners — which over the lifetime of the unit of measurement will save you money and reduce climate impacts and air pollutants — you can encourage your state legislators to follow the model of California, which requires a 40 percentage reduction in HFCs past 2030. Its latest efforts further prohibit refrigerants with high global warming potential in new air conditioners and commits to supporting other states to adopt similar prohibitions. New York, Maryland and Connecticut have followed adapt, and other states tin can, too. Y'all can besides encourage your legislators to crave the highest energy efficiency standards for air conditioners, and to apply their ownership ability to insist on only the nigh efficient equipment.
Encourage electric vehicles
By
Americans are driving more than miles in the same old cars, and considering nosotros utilize fuels made from oil to power most of our transportation system, moving people and goods around is the largest source of U.S. carbon emissions. Because nosotros apply petty oil to make electricity, and the ability filigree is getting cleaner every bit natural gas and renewables replace coal, electrifying every bit much of the transportation sector every bit possible could speed upward an free energy transition.
is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and a fellow at the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University.
In that location is a federal taxation credit of upwards to $7,500 to get people to purchase electric cars, but it is starting to phase out for some types of cars. Combined with incentives in some states, these tax credits accept been helpful, but electrical vehicles still brand up only a few percentage of all vehicle sales. Getting more electrical vehicles on the road requires expanded federal revenue enhancement credits and making them bachelor for buyers when they're at the car dealership, rather than in their tax returns the following year. This would assist more depression- and heart-income motorcar buyers brand the spring to electric. The federal government could also once again offer tax credits or direct infrastructure grants to local governments and firms to build a robust charging-station network then that these new electric auto owners have a identify to plug in.
Land and local policymakers can mirror these efforts but can also advance transportation electrification in other ways. At that place are more than than viii million fleet vehicles in the United states; governments could electrify a majority of their vehicles and induce businesses to follow their pb. Country and local governments could also experiment with electric-only delivery zones and use other innovative incentives to encourage electrification of freight, shared hailed vehicles and, eventually, automated vehicles.
Creating a transportation system where we can move effectually without oil is going to be challenging. But we'll go cars that are more fun to drive, cleaner air and a climate we tin recognize.
Exist smart about nuclear ability
By
My system, the Union of Concerned Scientists, recently released an analysis offer a sensible way for the United States to help gainsay climate change: Go along safely operating nuclear plants running until they tin can exist replaced by other low-carbon technologies.
is the manager of energy research and analysis for the Matrimony of Concerned Scientists' climate and energy program.
Our written report found that more than a third of the nation'south 60 plants operating at the end of 2017 — 22 per centum of U.Due south. nuclear power capacity — are either unprofitable or slated to close within the next x years. Unless federal and state governments adopt new policies, these and other economically marginal plants will probable exist replaced primarily by natural gas. If that happens, the U.S. electric ability sector's carbon emissions could increment as much equally half dozen per centum by 2035.
To assist preserve existing nuclear power — and heave investments in renewables and energy efficiency — the federal government and states should establish a carbon cost or a low-carbon electricity standard. These policies would aid level the playing field for low-carbon technologies past incorporating the cost of climate-change-related damage into the price of fossil fuels.
Absent those measures, some states are providing subsidies to prevent uneconomical plants from closing abruptly. States considering that approach should limit their subsidies and conform them over time to protect consumers, and provide them only to plants that meet or exceed the most stringent federal safety standards. Subsidies also should go hand in manus with increased investments in renewables and energy efficiency as function of a broader strategy to reduce carbon emissions.
Finally, the 60-year operating licenses for well-nigh reactors in the United states of america are scheduled to expire between 2030 and 2050. Nuclear found owners should exist required to develop worker and customs transition plans to set for their facilities' eventual retirement and decommissioning.
Make it easier to alive without cars
By
We have a suite of simple tools that tin assist us dramatically adjourn emissions from transportation: building and redesigning our streets to arrive safer and more convenient for people to walk and bike more and drive less — what we telephone call Complete Streets policies. In fact, at that place's no way we'll be able to sufficiently reduce our emissions without doing this. Every bit long as we blueprint our streets only for cars, we are designing a high-carbon future.
is the director of the National Complete Streets Coalition, a plan of Smart Growth America.
Walking or biking could substitute for 41 percent of short car trips, saving almost 5 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from automobile travel. So why don't we walk and bike more? We certainly desire to. A recent survey by the National Clan of Realtors found that a majority of Americans would prefer to alive in walkable communities with transit service. But we drive considering our streets have been designed for our vehicles, not united states. And walking is not only unpleasant on auto-oriented roads; it's often deadly. While traffic fatalities overall take been decreasing, pedestrian fatalities are increasing, up to nearly six,000 people in 2017.
Complete Streets policies are commitments by government to design our streets to make cycling, walking, riding transit and driving safe, comfortable, reliable and affordable. That includes better lighting and crosswalks for pedestrians, protected bike lanes for bicyclists, and skillful shelters and signage for people waiting for the omnibus.
According to the 2017 National Household Travel Survey, nearly 50 percent of all motorcar trips taken were three miles or less; more than than twenty percent were a mile or less. The potential climate benefits of shifting even a portion of those trips to lower-carbon modes are undeniable. Complete Streets policies are an of import function of a climate modify strategy. Residents can urge their city councils or land legislatures to pass Complete Streets legislation, improving safety and making more zero-emissions trips easier for everyone to have.
Forbid wasted nutrient — the right way
By
When Projection Drawdown ranked the 80 most impactful climate change solutions, No. iii was addressing waste matter of nutrient. In the United States, we waste up to twoscore percent of our food supply — enough nutritional value to feed millions. The United Nations estimates that if wasted food was a country, its greenhouse-gas emissions would rank 3rd globally. That's in role because of the food system's outsize climate impact: It accounts for an estimated 19 percent to 29 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions.
is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a program manager at the Johns Hopkins Middle for a Livable Future.
The Usa and many states and localities accept signed onto a global target of halving wasted nutrient by 2030. So-chosen nutrient waste bans, policies restricting food from going to landfills, can aid get there. Five states (California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Isle and Vermont) and multiple municipalities and international locations accept such bans or mandatory nutrient recycling. Others incentivize reduced landfilling with "pay equally you throw" approaches.
These policies tin can pb to increased food recycling (composting or anaerobic digestion) and related infrastructure. Merely while preferable to leaving food to release methyl hydride in landfills, recycling can't make up for the emissions that went into the food's product, processing, distribution, heating and cooling. Recycling can fifty-fifty be perceived as a justification for discarding good nutrient.
Amongst food waste material mitigation strategies, by far, the greater climate benefit per ton comes from avoiding unnecessary food product. Appropriately, waste material-ban policies should exist considered incomplete unless they promote waste prevention and donation as the preferred approaches. California, for case, has passed a neb requiring that, by 2025, at least 20 pct of edible food that would otherwise be disposed instead be recovered to consume.
Halving waste of food is an audacious target, but information technology'south achievable. Food waste material bans tin can dramatically ramp up the prevention, recovery and recycling of food. Near ban policies are fairly new, and more research is needed, only thus far it appears that, approached right, they can be a win-win-win-win-win for waste mitigation, jobs, economical activity, food insecurity and, of course, the climate.
Incentivize carbon farming
By
The agricultural industry is a leading source of greenhouse-gas emissions globally. Practices that improve soil health volition play a critical role in our efforts to combat climate change past reducing the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and states can aid past passing legislation that incentivizes carbon farming.
is a Democratic member of the New York Land Assembly.
Carbon farming refers to climate-smart agronomical practices that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by sequestering, or storing, carbon in the soil instead of promoting its release into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Carbon farming improves soil health and productivity, thereby maximizing ingather yields. It also increases soil resilience and reduces the demand for pesticides.
Carbon-farming strategies include planting comprehend crops that increment water retention and soil nutrients and keep weeds down; using no-till approaches that limit aeration of surface soils and reduce erosion; and planting various perennial forages with deeper root systems for grazing animals. Longer root systems increase organic matter (carbon-based molecules) in the soil. These practices could have a huge bear upon on our emissions: Project Drawdown estimates that widespread adoption of these types of practices could reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by 23.2 gigatons past 2050.
In New York, I introduced the Carbon Farming Act, a first-of-its-kind pecker that would requite farmers a financial incentive for implementing climate-smart practices. This legislation creates a tax credit for farmers to continue these practices and to encourage others to brainstorm them, because policies that reward — rather than punish through carbon penalties, for example — volition ultimately be more effective and equitable.
Farmers, who are responsible for producing the fresh food nosotros put on our tables and depend on atmospheric condition for their livelihoods, could make significant contributions to helping usa reach emission reduction goals. Incentivizing carbon-farming practices will ensure that agriculture's future is both economically and environmentally sustainable.
Curb the effects of meat and dairy
By
Nosotros must begin regulating the factory-farm model of livestock production to step up the fight on climatic change. A 2018 report from the Plant for Agriculture & Trade Policy and GRAIN analyzed the greenhouse-gas emissions of the world's 35 biggest meat and dairy conglomerates and establish that the top 20 emitted more than greenhouse gases in 2016 than several Arrangement for Economical Cooperation and Development fellow member countries did.
is executive director of the Institute for Agronomics & Trade Policy.
The mass production of ruminant animals produces untenable amounts of climate-warming methane. The conversion of large swaths of state into feed grain monocultures to raise ever-growing numbers of animals emits the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, as synthetic fertilizers leach into soils and water. Additionally, this land-use alter releases precious carbon stocks from soils into the atmosphere.
At present is the fourth dimension to call the meat and dairy conglomerates to account. Let'southward start by curbing both over-production and emissions by securing a moratorium on new mill farms, a.thou.a. CAFOs (concentrated brute feeding operations). Predominantly located in low-income communities and, often, communities of color, these major polluters of air and water are already facing tenacious public opposition. From Due north Carolina, to Wisconsin and Iowa, to California and Oregon, communities are calling on their local and state governments to step up and ameliorate regulate these polluters.
Then, let'south stop funneling taxpayer money to these big corporations through various subcontract-neb programs, such as the guaranteed loan program that often backs the construction and expansion of CAFOs. Instead, we should start investing in a just transition to agricultural systems that lift up rural communities by supporting farmers practicing sustainable grazing practices, expanding the infrastructure for the growing grass-fed beef and dairy markets, and enforcing fair marketplace and fair contract rules for the livestock industry. That will ameliorate the quality of our nutrient, air, soil, water and climate.
Adopt a carbon tax
Past
Warming temperatures, rising sea levels and more farthermost weather acquired by greenhouse emissions take the potential to adversely affect the wellness of every American and the strength of our economic system, consequently imposing substantial costs on us and futurity generations.
, a Republican, is an outgoing representative for Florida's 26th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.
We must recognize these costs to our nation and globe. We have a responsibility to promote policies that reduce greenhouse gases while maintaining economic growth and supporting innovation. We will need new ways to produce goods, transport ourselves and ability our economy across diverse sectors.
The best fashion to inspire such a broad-ranging, meaningful change, at the pace that we need it, is putting a price on carbon. When carefully crafted, a carbon price tin can strengthen our economy, reduce emissions and encourage innovation.
That was my goal in drafting the Market Choice Human activity, a bill that would repeal the federal gas and aviation fuel taxes and swap them for a tax on carbon emissions at the source. Revenue raised would then be used to robustly fund our nation'due south infrastructure, help coastal communities adapt to the immediate effects of climatic change and give low-income Americans and displaced workers assistance in the transition. Analysis from Columbia University indicates this legislation would exceed the emissions goals of the Paris agreement and President Barack Obama'due south Make clean Power Plan. The plan would also maintain American manufacturing competitiveness and provide regulatory certainty to allow for long-term investments in cleaner energy projects, so long as emissions goals are being met.
Economical prosperity and being good stewards of our surround are not mutually exclusive. By reducing our emissions, nosotros ensure the protection of our economic system, infrastructure and the full general welfare of all Americans.
Open electric markets to competition
By
Throughout much of the country, consumers take no choice when it comes to buying electricity. Local utilities are given monopoly privileges with oversight from state regulatory bodies. This organisation wasn't set up to keep the nation'due south electricity system dirty, but information technology often functions that style. Over the past decade, market-driven declines in the price of renewable energy and natural gas have led to the closure of many coal power plants. But considering electrical rates in monopoly systems are set based on what'south needed for utilities to recover their costs, the utility companies accept less incentive to retire uneconomical plants.
is a senior young man with the R Street Institute.
Introducing competition to the electric market changes that. Instead of a centrally planned organization deciding which types of power to employ, electricity generators must compete with each other to provide reliable ability at the lowest cost. Generators thus have strong incentives to switch to cleaner fuels when they go cheaper. It's no mere coincidence that the state with the most air current generation — Texas — also has the most free electric market in the nation. Competition can fifty-fifty ameliorate the operation of fossil-fuel plants. Between 1991 and 2005, states with electrical competition saw a half-dozen percent reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions from existing coal plants, due to improved fuel efficiency.
Electric contest has as well made providers more responsive to the growing consumer demand for clean energy. The number of "light-green choice" customers in states with retail contest increased by 142 percent from 2010 to 2012.
Introducing more contest into the electrical system would help speed the transition to cleaner energy. And even where states might not be ready to comprehend full restructuring, smaller steps can even so help. Some states have considered creating an exemption to the typical monopoly restrictions for customers who want to buy 100 percent renewable electricity on the open up market. Reducing emissions from the power sector is a disquisitional part of the response to climate change, and electric competition needs to be a role of that conversation.
Laissez passer a Green New Deal
By
We don't have a moment to waste product. To address the full telescopic of the climate crisis, we need massive authorities activity to overhaul our economic system abroad from fossil fuels to clean free energy. Nosotros need a Green New Deal — a broad and ambitious parcel of policies and investments that would put millions of Americans to work transforming our economic system away from fossil fuels by 2030, restoring the American landscape and ensuring that everyone has clean air and water, all in ways that prioritize justice and equity and grow the economy.
is the founder and spokeswoman of the Sunrise Movement.
Specifically, we could transition 100 percent of our electricity generation to renewable sources; build a national, free energy-efficient, "smart" grid; upgrade every residential and industrial building for country-of-the-art energy efficiency, condolement and safety; and transition the manufacturing, agriculture and transportation industries abroad from coal, oil and gas. A Light-green New Deal would besides invest in projects to capture climate-damaging gases already in the atmosphere and make the United States an undisputed global leader in green engineering, ensuring that the advances we make can be shared with the global customs.
While the Greenish New Deal would require a scale of government activity not seen since the Not bad Depression and Earth War Two, this type of job-creating policy is extremely popular and could ensure economical security to millions of Americans for the first time in decades, specially people of color and poor or center-class Americans who accept been left out of the economic gains of the by four decades. We can solve the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced and protect our air, h2o and land for time to come generations.
Immature people take a right to adept jobs and a livable future. The Green New Deal is a winning plan for both.
Editing past Anna Walsh. Illustrations by Tom Toles. Copy editing by Lydia Rebac.
Credits: Produced by Post Opinions Staff.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2019/01/02/feature/opinion-here-are-11-climate-change-policies-to-fight-for-in-2019/
0 Response to "what is the government doing to stop global warming"
Post a Comment