09/19/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/19/2024 15:40
WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the America's Clean Future Fund Act, a bill that would spur job creation by investing in a clean energy economy. The bill seeks to drive significant carbon emissions reductions to combat the climate crisis; provide transition assistance to environmental justice (EJ) communities, farmers, and fossil fuel-reliant communities; and provide financing for climate resilience and clean energy projects.
"We are already seeing the impacts of the climate crisis in our globe's extreme weather and the devolution of landscapes we once knew. If we want to curb the dangerous effects of this human-driven crisis and leave a livable planet for the next generation, we must act now," said Durbin. "The America's Clean Future Fund Act would make clean energy investments to spur economic growth while ensuring no one is left behind as we move toward a cleaner economy."
According to the most recent National Climate Assessment, the climate crisis is already impacting every region in the region and worsening, leading to the loss of American lives, infrastructure, and property, as well as slowing the rate of economic growth this century. The assessment calls for rapid cuts to emissions from human activity to reduce harmful impacts of a warming planet. As a result of the climate crisis, a person born in 2020 is now projected to experience twice as many cyclones and droughts, and as much as five times as many heat waves as a person born in 1965. Although policies like the Inflation Reduction Act made significant investments to combat the climate crisis, more work is necessary to prevent global average temperatures from rising to intolerable levels. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) most recent report declares that, "Without urgent, effective, and equitable mitigation and adaptation actions, climate change increasingly threatens ecosystems, biodiversity, and the livelihoods, health, and well-being of current and future generations." The America's Clean Future Fund Act will help take that action.
Specifically, the America's Clean Future Fund Act would do the following:
The bill is supported by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and Citizen's Climate Lobby.
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