Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

Meeting the Climate Challenge in Time

At NRDC, tackling climate change is both an urgent and long-term institutional priority. Since NRDC’s founding in 1970, we have built up an unparalleled team of expert advocates focusing on the most significant opportunities and policy venues for advancing clean energy solutions and reducing the pollution that endangers our health and climate.

When it comes to climate change, our challenge is to “bend the curve” in time. We must accelerate the progress underway at the state, regional and federal level and internationally, if we are to reduce emissions fast enough to avoid locking ourselves and future generations into a dangerously disrupted climate.

While we have suffered some disappointing setbacks in 2010, especially in the U.S. Senate, the environmental community and our growing ranks of allies must continue to press forward on multiple fronts to build the foundation for a truly low-carbon and cleaner energy economy, and ensure that it grows at a pace that results in the emission reductions that are needed. Much of this work will take place outside of Washington, at the local, state and regional level, and in key developing countries, such as China, where it is critical to build the market and regulatory infrastructure needed to steer economic growth toward cleaner energy resources.

As we look ahead to next year and the coming decade, it is helpful to take stock of what we have achieved and are well positioned to build on. These accomplishments, of course, were collaborative efforts involving the hard work of multiple organizations, many of whom are recognized on this website. Key accomplishments include:

• The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in our favor that the Clean Air Act does give EPA the authority (and obligation) to regulate greenhouse gas pollution;
• 21 states “decoupling” their gas and/or electric utilities’ profits from sales, and further measures to expand investment in efficiency and cleaner energy supplies;
• 25 states and more than 800 cities committing to reducing greenhouse gas pollution from vehicles, power plants and other major sources;
• Congress and President Bush enacting in 2007 expanded authority to increase fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, now promulgated with GHG standards by the Obama Administration that will reduce transportation emissions by at least 20%; and,
• ajor industry, labor and broad business support of clean energy legislation that would commit the U.S. to reducing emissions by 14-20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, recognizing the economic growth potential of transitioning to a clean energy economy.

In large part due to these and other areas of progress, we are well positioned to achieve significant reductions in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions over the next several years, despite dim prospects for comprehensive climate legislation in the next Congress. The key will be to make effective use of existing tools, and defend those tools against ideologically and financially motivated efforts to block EPA, and perhaps other agencies, from using their existing authority to reduce global warming pollution.

The World Resources Institute has analyzed the emission reduction potential under existing federal authority, including the Clean Air Act, and previously announced state actions. While the analysis shows that it is feasible to achieve a 12% reduction by 2020, it does not take into consideration additional state and federal policies (the impacts from utility decoupling, for example) that could result in even greater reductions.

Moving forward, NRDC will be focused on two overarching goals: accelerating investment in efficiency and low-carbon energy sources, and improving the political environment that has limited progress towards comprehensive solutions at the federal and international level. Through legal and policy advocacy at the state and federal level, our priority objectives are to:

1.Advance, defend and enforce pollution-reducing standards under current law—for greenhouse gas emissions, as well as conventional pollutants—and clean up or replace dirty power plants and industrial sources with cleaner technologies;

2.Reform electric and gas utility markets to make investments in energy efficiency and clean energy resources a more profitable alternative to high emission and resource intensive power generation;

3.Ensure that state and regional programs to limit greenhouse gas emissions become good working models for transitioning to a clean energy economy while lowering energy bills and creating high quality jobs; and,

4.Pursue select opportunities at the federal level to establish performance-based standards and incentives to accelerate deployment of efficient, low-carbon technologies in the transportation, power and industrial sectors.

Success on these fronts will help ensure we have the advanced technologies and regulatory tools in place to get the U.S. on track in the near term. In the longer term, however, we will need national legislation to establish the broad market conditions that will accelerate the deployment of these technologies at the scale and pace that are needed to achieve our emission reduction goals. It is imperative therefore that we use each and every near-term opportunity to improve the political conditions—privately and publically—that will enable rapid and lasting progress at the federal and international level.