How America Made Climate History
The Clean Power Plan is the breakthrough we have been working toward for decades.
President Obama made history on Monday. He announced that the United States will limit the biggest source of carbon pollution in our midst: power plants. This is a giant step forward in the fight against climate change. It will unleash clean energy growth, make the air safer to breathe, and honor our obligation to protect future generations from the destruction of unchecked climate change.
It’s the kind of breakthrough climate activists have been working toward for decades.
I began fighting climate change more than 20 years ago. Together with my NRDC colleagues, I have advocated for climate solutions on every possible level — from state houses to Capitol Hill, community groups to corner offices, Beijing to Copenhagen.
It has been a journey of victories and setbacks. We were heartened in 2006 when California passed the first law to reduce climate change pollution, for instance. But in 2010, the Senate failed to take up the legislation and major climate action appeared dead on arrival.
Now five years later, the Obama administration has ensured that the United States will reduce carbon pollution from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 through his Clean Power Plan. This will create 30 percent more renewable energy generation and save the average household an average of $85 on annual energy bills in 2030.
The Clean Power Plan alone can’t address the climate threat — the scale of this crisis is too large to defuse with one blow. But it will build low-carbon solutions into America’s energy system and make climate leadership a part of our country’s international profile.
This is a turning point, and several forces brought us here:
Supreme Court Decisions
The court ruled three times since 2004 that the Clean Air Act gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate carbon pollution. These and other rulings confirm that the Clean Power Plan will withstand legal attacks from polluting industries and their allies.
Extreme Weather
When I first started working on climate change, we talked about future predictions. By 2011, many people just had to look out the window to see what climate change could do to their communities. From costly drought in California to the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, climate change has hit home.
Bold Leaders
President Obama knows that history will judge him based on what he did to fight climate change. He has risen to the challenge. And he has been aided by two extraordinary champions: former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, who designed the first carbon limits for new power plants, and the agency’s current administrator, Gina McCarthy, who did the same for existing power plants.
Clean Energy Works
Oil, gas, and coal companies would have us believe America can only power our economy with fossil fuels. Yet over the past few years, the clean energy sector has proved them wrong. Renewable power accounted for nearly 70 percent of new U.S. electricity generation in the first half of this year, costs have plummeted, and nearly 240,000 Americans work in the wind and solar industries.
The People’s March
Last September, I joined more than 400,000 people in New York City for the largest climate march in history. For every person with us that day, there were countless more concerned citizens working across the country to make their communities more resilient and to demand climate justice. The call for climate action has become a powerful movement, drawing on the commitment of millions of Americans from all walks of life.
Last month, I became a grandmother, and there is nothing like holding a small baby to make you think about the future. I don’t want children born today to face the devastation of unchecked climate change.
The Clean Power Plan is one of the tools we can use to prevent that fate.
As President Obama said on Saturday, “Climate change is not a problem for another generation. Not anymore.” On Monday, we all became part of the generation that is making climate change history.
