The United States happens to be one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases together with China and India but the others have surpassed the United States to become the world leaders in renewable energy. Earlier this year, China completed the world’s largest solar farm and is currently aiming to stop the manufacture and sale of petrol and diesel vehicles. All these happened before the President of the United States, Donald Trump, withdrew the country from the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015.
It is not a surprise that major American businesses like Apple, Microsoft, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Exxon, Google, and GE, opposed the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement. These businesses understand that growth of clean energy jobs has toppled fossil fuel jobs. 1 in 50 new jobs in the U.S. is accounted for by solar while wind turbine technician is the single fastest-growing job. There is so much at stake that ‘doing nothing’ in the fight against climate change is not an option.
Despite withdrawing from the Paris Accord, the United State President, Donald Trump, said “the golden era of American energy is now underway” during the Unleashing American Energy event. The president began by thanking the energy executives and labor union leaders present,
“You’ve gone through eight years of hell. We are putting the coal miners back to work just like I promised. We are ending the intrusive [Environmental Protection Agency] regulations that raise the price of energy so substantially. We have so much more [energy] than we ever thought possible… we don’t want to let other countries take away our sovereignty and tell us what to do… we will be dominant. We will export American energy all around the globe… Job-killing regulations are being removed…like you’ve never seen before.”
Source: Independent
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) has put forward a market-driven plan to combat climate change as well as create thousands of jobs across the country. The bill known as the Green Bank Act will create a national Green Bank to provide financing support to regional, state, and municipal green banks, to fund clean-energy and energy-efficient projects across the nation. Green bank has been a huge success in the six states – Connecticut, New York, California, Vermont, Hawaii, and Rhodes Island – where it has been established. States that have adopted the green bank are currently leading America’s Green energy initiative.
