The Clean Energy Future Blog

By Coalition for Green Capital

The following article by CGC CEO Reed Hundt originally appeared in Automotive Industries.

There is no way to win the battle against climate change without a radical reduction in the emissions coming from the tailpipes of cars, buses, and trucks. Transportation accounts for about 30 % of all US emissions, according to the Energy Information Administration. To solve the gas exhaust problem, this market needs transformation as dramatic as the shift from landline to mobile, or train to airplane. Fortunately, smart subsidies can soon cut tailpipe emissions in half, or even more.

At first look, the problem seems colossal. Almost 300 million gas driven cars and trucks parked across the land, close to one per person, make America the most car-centric country in the world. By contrast, only one million have electric motors. In a great year for sales about 20 million gas burners are sold, while in 2018 merely 350,000 electric vehicles were sold. Even if consumers fell in love with the price and performance of electric cars, far too many years would have to pass before the total installed base went from carbon to clean.

The solution is public subsidies that will convert the most heavily driven vehicles to electric motors and develop much more efficient gas motors. These two steps can reduce tailpipe emissions by two-thirds within as few as five years.

Year in, year out, Americans drive about 3 trillion miles. But just three kinds of vehicles, totaling only 15 or 16 million out of the base of almost 300 million, account for one-fourth of all miles. These are the cars and trucks that should become electric, with electric speed. Here they are:

(1) About twelve million trucks account for about 50,000 miles each per year, based on data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the Alternative Fuels Data Center. If all go electric to win the subsidy money, that amounts to over half a trillion miles’ worth of reduced emissions. (2) Based on Uber, Lyft and taxi projections, within four years about 4 million drivers will rack up about 50,000 miles each per year on average carrying passengers. If all these cars were paid enough per mile to go electric, that’s another 200 billion miles cut into tailpipe emissions. (3) Rental cars total more than 2 million a year, each used for about 30,000 miles; if these were all electric, 60 billion miles of emissions disappear. So by subsidizing per mile driven (instead of per car) one fourth of all gas-driven miles can become electric.

Subsidizing the purchase of electric cars instead, while ignoring how many miles they are driven, is much more expensive and far more likely to delay the emissions reduction desperately needed soon.

The other big move is to double fuel efficiency. Reports from the Energy Information Administration have projected that an increase of more than 40% in fuel economy of new vehicles is possible by 2025. If every gas-powered car travelled twice as far per gallon, emissions per mile would be cut in half. That’s because a gallon of gas produces the same emissions, roughly, if it takes the car 25 miles or 50 miles. And the number of miles Americans need to go from here to there stays constant. So doubling fuel efficiency would cut in half the gas-driven miles left after the electrification of shared vehicles. This move will take longer to have effect because the total fleet turns over at a rate less than 10% a year. But subsidies of efficient motors could drive up sales, make dealers happy, and help save the planet.

The result of these moves — subsidizing shared vehicles per electric mile and doubling fuel efficiency — would be to win a big battle against climate change.

By Coalition for Green Capital

Head over to Meeting of the Minds for a guest post by CGC Executive Director Jeff Schub, discussing how Green Banks help cities transition to clean energy- and what more could be accomplished with the help of a National Climate Bank.

Summarizing the value provided to cities by Green Banks, he writes:

Existing Green Banks have already proven that a single public dollar of investment can catalyze multiples of private co-investment. These projects simultaneously earn profitable returns for private investors, and provide economic benefits and reduced costs to consumers.

Meeting of the Minds brings together urban sustainability and technology leaders to share knowledge and build lasting alliances, and publishes guest content from a variety of experts.

Read more in the full post.

By Coalition for Green Capital

A new story by Lisa Prevost at Energy News Network provides an excellent overview of the opportunity for a National Climate Bank to accelerate the clean energy transition. The proposal is informed by the successful track record of existing green banks at the state and local level, including in Connecticut and New York.

CGC Executive Director Jeffrey Schub describes the model proven by existing green banks, as well as the urgency of mobilizing far greater clean energy investment:

“There’s a need to put our foot on the gas.”

CGC analysis has found that a National Climate Bank capitalized with $35 billion in federal funds could leverage as much as a trillion dollars in total investment over 30 years. Addressing the climate crisis will require transforming the energy sector and the nation’s infrastructure on precisely this large scale, and the Climate Bank would be empowered to invest across sectors in order to maximize its impact.

Check out the full story at Energy News Network. And, for even more on the proposed National Climate Bank and the achievements of existing Green Banks in the US, see the Annual Industry Report of the American Green Bank Consortium, the National Climate Bank micro-site, and the full analysis “Mobilizing $1 Trillion towards Climate Action.”

By Coalition for Green Capital

The African Development Bank, in partnership with the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), today announced that it has commissioned the Coalition for Green Capital (CGC) to prepare a study on the creation of national climate change funds and green banks in Africa.

CGC will identify and work with six African countries to conduct feasibility studies for the project, which was initiated at the Green Bank Design Summit held in Paris in March 2019.

For details on the new project, see the full release on the website of the African Development Bank Group.

The project will build on momentum from  CGC’s previous work establishing Green Banks in Africa. For more details on these efforts, see:

• CGC applauds groundbreaking agreement to fund South African Climate Finance Facility
• Rwanda Engages CGC to Develop Catalytic Green Investment Fund

For more background on the Green Bank Design Summit, see the event website and recap release from joint organzers CGC, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with lead sponsor the ClimateWorks Foundation.

For more information on the successes of existing Green Banks around the world, see the Green Bank Network, which provides a venue for these institutions to work together and share information. Member institutions have recently reached a new milestone of $50 billion in total mobilized funds.

By Coalition for Green Capital

This post originally appeared on the site of CGC’s campaign for a federal Green Bank.

In a new five-part series with the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, former Connecticut DEEP Commissioner Rob Klee calls for the creation of a $500 billion federal green bank. The series covers a wide-ranging set of topics addressing the question:

“Is there a version of this massive investment in decarbonization somewhere out there that is aggressive enough to meet the bar set by the scientists, yet pragmatic enough to work politically and as a matter of law and policy?”

Not to spoil the conclusion of the series… but the answer is yes. The technologies and policy tools we need are already available, and in many cases are currently being successfully implemented at the state level. Klee finds that by drawing on these ideas, a framework emerges for a comprehensive and aggressive US decarbonization plan.

One of the threads running throughout the series is the mobilization of public investment into clean energy. This investment is a direct complement to the setting of targets and mandates. Klee writes:

“States have discovered that it’s not enough to simply legislate the use of clean energy; they need to get involved in actually constructing it.”

Klee makes this statement in the context of state procurement of clean energy, but it’s part of a broader point. Without this type of public investment, the market might still eventually bring about the necessary clean energy transition, but at a slower rate and a higher cost. He later adds:

“As shown by the examples throughout this series, states recognize that the future of energy and environmental policy is neither ‘command and control’ nor ‘market mechanisms’ — it is both.”

Looking ahead to the future, Klee highlights Green Banks as a crucial tool to mobilize the necessary wave of public investment, proposing $500 billion in federal funding for Green Banks. He mentions the success of the Connecticut Green Bank, which in its first five years used less than $200 million in ratepayer funds to spark over $1 billion in investment in clean energy and energy efficiency.

Momentum for Green Banks is growing. Two Green Bank-related bills have been introduced in the Senate this session. One, the Green Bank Act of 2019, would provide funding to state and local Green Banks. The second bill, the National Climate Bank Act, would create an institution empowered do this as well as a set of additional actions, including directly investing in clean energy projects. The Green Bank model for public investment has also been a part of 2020 candidates’ climate change plans.

For a hopeful look at the tools we have at hand right now to bring about a Green New Deal and a low-carbon future, check out the full series.

By Coalition for Green Capital

The American Bar Association (ABA) regularly publishes practical, informative articles for legal practitioners. This week, ABA’s Environment, Energy, and Resources Group published a new piece from CGC’s Alex Kragie on how the National Climate Bank Act can help the Green New Deal reach its ambitious targets.

As Director of the American Green Bank Consortium, a project of CGC that convenes existing state and local Green Banks to work together and share knowledge, Kragie has a firsthand look at the success of the Green Bank model to drive investment into clean energy projects. He writes:

By providing a framework and a set of financial tools to connect dollars to projects, this bill represents the first substantial legislative plank to support achievement of the climate goals of the Green New Deal.

The ABA publication also coincides with a recent interview by Sen. Ed Markey, a lead sponsor of the National Climate Bank Act, where he further discussed how the bill fits into his vision for climate action. Sen. Markey said:

“It’s really not a question of technology any longer. It’s really a question of political will,” Markey said of establishing a strategy to address climate change. “If we have the political will, the technologies will be there in order to transform our economy,” he added.

Read the full ABA piece here, and see Sen. Markey’s comments and full interview on video at the links.