Full Title: A 1.5 Celsius Pathway To Climate Leadership For The United States
Author(s): Robbie Orvis
Publisher(s): Energy Innovation
Publication Date: February 25, 2021
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
To avoiding catastrophic climate change, we must limit warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which requires cutting greenhouse gas missions roughly in half in the next decade with emissions dropping to near zero by 2050. Achieving these reductions can only happen by rapidly transitioning from a fossil fuel-based economy to one running on clean energy.
New research using the U.S. Energy Policy Simulator shows a comparatively small group of policies can achieve the emissions reductions required for a 1.5 C pathway, while generating large economic and health benefits. Transforming the economy in line with a 1.5 C target could increase U.S. gross domestic product $500 billion per year in 2030 and $1 tillion in 2050 (a 2.6 percent annual GDP expansion), create more than 3.1 million new job-years by 2030 and 5.5 million new job-years by 2050, avoid more than 65,000 premature deaths and 2 million asthma attacks by 2050, and build an economy insulated from fossil fuel-price volatility.