With global heat records and greenhouse gas emissions reaching new highs, it can seem hard to find hope in news about climate change. However, a new analysis of climate pollution from the U.S. economy shows the country could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by anywhere from 38 percent to 56 percent over the coming decade as clean-energy sources get cheaper and federal climate policies take full effect.
"The U.S. is on track to meaningfully accelerate its rate of decarbonization," Rhodium Group Associate Director Ben King told Newsweek. Rhodium is an independent research firm that specializes in energy and climate issues, and King is co-author of the group's new "Taking Stock" report, the tenth annual forecast of U.S. emissions from power generation, transportation, industry and other major carbon pollution sources.
Rhodium's forecast calls for the rate of U.S. emissions reductions to increase each year by 2 to 4 percent, even as the economy and demand for energy both grow.
"That represents somewhere between a doubling and a quadrupling of the rate of decarbonization that we've seen since 2005," King said.
Two main factors are driving emissions down, King said: policies and prices. On the policy front, legislation including the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden's landmark climate law, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law both offer major incentives to a range of clean-tech investors.
"The second piece of the story is just a bunch of these [clean] technologies are starting to get really cheap," King said, pointing out that the falling prices for solar panels, batteries and EVs make them more competitive with their fossil-fired competitors.
As with other recent projections of the U.S. energy economy, Rhodium anticipates a sharp increase in demand for electricity in the coming years as we electrify more parts of our lives from vehicles to heat pumps and as domestic manufacturing grows.
The growth in data centers will also contribute to about a quarter of the anticipated growth in electricity demand, the authors said. However, that growth will continue to "decouple" from emissions as more of our electricity comes from cleaner sources.
The authors estimate that low-carbon sources like wind, solar and nuclear could provide from 62 percent to 88 percent of total electricity generation in 2035, while coal generation will fall to near zero.
"One thing that hopefully is clear from this work is clean energy is no longer a niche part of the U.S. economy," King said. "It's becoming an increasing part of how we do business."
Growth in clean-energy investment and jobs, in turn, creates more support for policies favoring climate action, he said. However, even the sharp emissions reductions in the Rhodium forecast are not sufficient to meet the U.S. commitments under the United Nations' Paris Agreement, which laid out action each nation must take in order to avoid the most dangerous levels of global warming.
King also cautioned that nothing in the forecast is certain. Dramatic changes in economic growth, the economics of clean-energy technology or the direction of federal policy on climate and energy could all bring about a very different emissions future.
The coming election will be a major factor as Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump has pledged to undo many of Biden's climate acts.
"A White House controlled by the Trump administration, and, if that's paired with congressional control by Republicans as well, could mean some of the major tenets of the Inflation Reduction Act are at risk of being overturned," King said.
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent rulings constraining the authority of environmental regulators could also diminish the climate impact of new rules limiting emissions from power plants and autos.
The Rhodium Group report joins a chorus of recent energy forecasts pointing to a coming cleaner-energy world. Last week, the International Energy Agency updated its outlook for global electricity production and projected that renewable electricity will hit a historic milestone next year: The IEA said clean-energy sources around the world will eclipse coal-fired power for the first time.
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About the writer
Jeff Young is Newsweek's Environment and Sustainability Editor based in Louisville, Kentucky. His focus is climate change and sustainability with an ... Read more