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      Report: US needs much more than the IRA to get to net zero by 2050

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 19 October - 22:55 · 1 minute

    Wind turbines on brown hills against a sunset.

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    On Tuesday, the US National Academies of Science released a report entitled "Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States." The report follows up on a 2021 analysis entitled, "Accelerating Decarbonization in the US Energy System." When the earlier report was prepared, the US didn't have a decarbonization policy, although the growth of natural gas and renewables was dropping the emissions involved in producing electricity. Within the following year, the US passed an infrastructure law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), all of which contained provisions intended to help cut the US's emissions in half by 2030. The Environmental Protection Agency has also formulated policies that should radically reduce the emissions of generating electricity.

    In other words, shortly after the report's release, the US formulated a plan to accelerate decarbonization and a target of a 50 percent emissions reduction by 2030.

    Rather than pat themselves on the back, however, the experts who prepared the original report recognized that the US's climate goals require it to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century, and that will require lots of policy changes beyond the ones already in place. The new report is largely a call for people to start thinking of what we need to implement to ensure emissions keep dropping after 2030.

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      Green electricity won’t help with pollution disparities

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 21 June, 2023 - 22:11

    Image of exhaust coming out of the tailpipe of a bus.

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    In the US, minorities are exposed to higher pollution levels than other populations . This is at least partly explained by the fact that we tend to build things like power plants and freeways in low-income neighborhoods, which is also where minorities tend to live. The shift away from fossil fuel use can potentially lower the burden on minorities, shuttering fossil fuel plants and reducing the number of vehicles that burn fuel.

    A new analysis on decarbonization's effects on pollution shows that minorities will see their exposure fall. But it indicates that minorities are likely to still be disproportionately affected unless we specifically focus on reducing their exposure.

    Exposure

    Burning fossil fuels releases a variety of pollutants into the environment. Chief among these are particulates; one category alone (PM 2.5) is estimated to lead to 100,000 premature deaths annually in the US. Before their death, people are often saddled with extensive health costs and lost productivity.

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