Patricia Arnal-Luna’s Post

Brian Deese: to quickly and deeply restructure the grid “the challenge is political”. but as Deese recognizes, it is also about expanding ambitious active systemic climate stewardship by investors, addressing the entire energy sector BEYOND oil & gas production and distribution companies, namely to electric utility company businesses, and other diversified energy players, targeting their energy and product use mix, and transmission and distribution networks and activities, in the context of a rapidly modernizing and dynamic 21st century grid, where new electricity producers are given grid access, and where incumbent producer operators are incentivized to invest to help create a new energy reality for all of America.

A very insightful piece on the importance of electric utility reform in the United States. #climateaction #climatesolutions #cleanenergy

This is a crucial article for everyone involved in the work of the Citizens' Climate Lobby. As Brian Deese admits, "the topic of #utility reform operates in what the climate writer David Roberts has described as a 'force field of tedium.'" Deese says that he "can say from experience that starting a cocktail-party conversation about public-utility-commission elections is a good way to find yourself standing alone. But if you care about averting the most apocalyptic consequences of climate change, you need to care about #utilities," and that "if you care about the #climate fight, the primary opponent is no longer just Big Oil, but hurdles to energy utility regulatory reform" that are admittedly very wonky and unsexy but nonetheless existential now at our current point in the climate collapse. #sdg7

Recommending this insightful article that drives home the necessity of modernizing the US electricity grid and perhaps our model for utilities in general. If a new renewable installation’s electrons are akin to added cars, the transmission network is the highway system and the distribution network is the off ramp to get the electrons where they are ultimately needed. The highway is crumbling and too narrow and there aren’t enough off ramps. Not a perfect metaphor but I think it works.

I wrote today in The Atlantic about the path forward to fully unlocking the economic and environmental potential of the Inflation Reduction Act: reforming our outdated electricity system. https://lnkd.in/e4ZDr2Sp

***EDITED POST to reflect best practice in characterizing "clean vs dirty" sources of energy and finance, rather than using the more traditional "green vs brown" framing, which it was pointed out to me perpetuates racist and outdated modes of speaking about these topics. I've dropped a helpful link that was shared with me in the comments and thank my brave colleagues who continue to speak up and point out where we can do better in using our words carefully to advance the more equitable and just climate community we strive for.**** Thank you Brian Deese for writing this incredibly important piece. The war on climate change will be won or lost on how well we change incentives to make clean more profitable than dirty as quickly and in as many parts of the economy as possible. Electricity is the most fundamental of these markets and is the backbone and work horse of the new clean economy. We need clean, firm, cheap and highly reliable electricity everywhere. Our antiquated and outdated state protected monopoly utility system may have made sense 75 years ago- it most definitively does not make sense today absent sweeping and significant reform of and by every public utility commission and “public” utility in the country. The 21st century grid is infinitely more complex, distributed, and multidirectional than ever before. Until the environment and philanthropic communities are ready to fund a ground game that enables extensive and multi year reform efforts at each public utility across America we’ll continue to leave money and climate mitigation and resilience on the table. As Brian says so well: “What it means is that the next phase of the fight against climate change must be the comparatively wonky, unsexy work of reforming our outdated electricity markets.” The economic threat to fossil fuel incumbents of clean, abundant and absurdly inexpensive electricity is now very real in many parts of the world. The smart ones are getting on board- but many will fight with their dying breath to go down with the titanic. Getting smart on- and deeply investing in- our ground game regulatory reform strategy on electricity sector reform globally is one the most important things we can do as the environmental community in the next 5 years.

🎉 Thrilled to share that the article I co-authored with Simone Tagliapietra and Giovanni Sgaravatti is finally out! Amid the energy crisis, we closely analyzed the fiscal policy responses that governments implemented to shield households and businesses from volatile energy prices. With the added urgency of climate change, our work suggested the need for smarter fiscal policies that both promote energy savings, prioritize support for vulnerable users and accelerate the green transition. So we suggested the "Green triple T" framework—tailored, targeted, and *crucially* transition-proof measures. 

To avoid a 2 degrees Celsius scenario, emissions must be reduced by 45% by 2030. The next president of the United States will be in office until 2029. To protect American jobs and lives, meet ballooning energy demand, enhance America's resilience and energy independence, and continue to fight against the climate crisis the #cleanenergy industry needs continued policy support from the federal government. https://lnkd.in/dPH8vc6e  

In our latest note, we unpack the impacts of evolving climate and energy policy in the US in the year ahead. Rolling back executive action on climate could raise average household energy costs, increase dependence on oil and gas imports, drive up GHG emissions, and put substantial levels of private investment at risk.

There's no stopping this IRA train. $100 billion distributed, and 80% of that obligated by the time Biden leaves means that the legacy of the IRA, and its impact on propelling us to a clean energy tomorrow, today, is indelibly written in the history books. We need an investment that is orders of magnitude bigger than this, so we can't let up our fight, but with the majority of these dollars going to red states, we're showing that regardless of people's politics, Americans understand the benefits of clean energy, energy independence, energy efficiency, and modern infrastructure. The real work to put steel in the ground is happening at the local level, and there are countless stories to tell and data to share about what is working and what isn't. If this is work you are doing, and would like to contribute to those stories and data, or to learn from them, join us over at the Climate Advocacy Lab, we've got a kick-ass team working on gathering and sharing that information, and regardless of who is in office in DC, we're not slowing down. https://lnkd.in/gRQQgWcv