Insights from Climate Reality Leadership Training
In April, the Community Net-Zero Education Project members Julia Nakhleh and Leonard Nakamura joined 3,000 other climate leaders-in-training at the Climate Reality Project’s Leadership Training in New York City. There we learned a lot of good news about our progress toward a net-zero greenhouse gases future. Former Vice President Al Gore, leader of Climate Reality, gave a rousing talk about how to move the world to sustainability.
In August 2024, the Federal Government enacted the $370 billion Inflation Reduction Act, the largest carbon reduction program in US history. Already this program has jumpstarted $420 billion in new private investments in clean energy in less than two years. From being a laggard, the US has become a global leader in the drive for decarbonization. The Biden Administration is rolling out more and more opportunities for subsidized adoption of greenhouse gas reduction technology. See our website to get ideas about how you and your organization can take advantage of these climate subsidies. For the latest updates, see Rewiring America.
Another great point is that while scientists used to think that once we got to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, it would be some time before the earth would stop warming. Now many believe that once we reach net zero, temperatures will stop rising in only a few years – in three to
five years, -- as CO2 continues to be absorbed by the oceans and weathering.
Wind and solar energy are now the lowest cost way to produce electricity, When paired with energy storage it can provide electricity at all hours of the day. Even better, the prices for wind, solar, and storage continue to drop faster than forecasts. For the first time in human history, we can envision an industrial society without fossil fuels. A lot of work needs to be done to get us there, and that means a lot of job opportunities. The US alone has over 3 million clean energy jobs and growing. The IRA has created 300 thousand of them in less than two year, with as many as 5 million more to come. To help with those jobs, the Biden Administration has started the American Climate Corps to help train young people in jobs that help address the climate crisis.
Five years ago, before the pandemic curtailed leadership training, the big problem Climate Reality leaders faced was convincing skeptics of global warming. Now the effects of global warming are so clear the big obstacle is the efforts of fossil fuel companies to prevent a sane response. For example, oil companies are arguing that the transition to clean energy will require mining that will be worsen the problem. But while the transition will require tens of millions of tons of mining annually, that’s well below the 15 billion tons of mining that fossil fuels require. Nearly a thousand times less.
We must follow this up with voting in November to stop climate change at all levels of government. Together, the world’s peoples are creating the greatest-ever grassroots movement; we have no other choice. Our lives depend on it.
If you want to step up as a climate leader, you can sign up for more information about Climate Reality leadership training here.
¹ According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, 86 percent of all the newly commissioned renewable capacity in 2022 had lower costs than fossil fuel-fired electricity.