Attempting to save the planet
Source: https://www.worldfinance.com/strategy/attempting-to-save-the-planet
With the global climate at a tipping point and summit efforts amounting to little more than rhetoric in recent years, US President Joe Biden’s $479bn climate change package has come just in time. According to BCG, there will be a multi-pronged effect. First, the adoption of electric vehicles will accelerate, lowering the price of entry for passenger and heavy-duty vehicles. Further, incentive-style funding will materially reduce the costs of renewable and other carbon-free forms of energy, with up to 80 percent of electricity being carbon-free as early as 2030. Simultaneously, manufacturing, which is a hard-to-abate sector, will be encouraged to use manufacturing tax credits to embrace cleantech. Nor, having set a new direction, is the Biden administration stopping with the IRA. In a surprise decision, given the Republicans’ blind eye to climate change during Trump’s fossil fuel-friendly term in office, the US senate has ratified the so-called Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol that aims to protect the much-damaged ozone layer through a rapid phase-down of climate-deadly hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). According to scientists, HFCs are hundreds to thousands of times more powerful than CO2 in accelerating climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency, which Trump tried to hamstring, is considering tougher rules for heavy trucks so more zero-emission haulers are put on the road. Almost every week, the White House and government agencies launch initiatives aimed squarely at climate change