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Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Donald Trump’s Project 2025 would cost the economy billions, jack up household bills, and rob us of a safer climate future. It isn’t just a policy proposal—it’s a full-scale assault on progress.
Vice President Kamala Harris recently unveiled her new economic plan, a vision for America that not only charts a path to tackle climate pollution but harnesses it as an opportunity to build a more affordable, prosperous country. Her plans and record shows we can tackle the climate crisis while creating a more equitable economy. In fact, the Biden-Harris administration’s climate law has already spurred over $372 billion in investments and created more than 334,000 new jobs—with nearly half of the benefits going to historically marginalized groups, including low-income households and Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities.
At Evergreen Action, we’re fighting to enact policies to tackle the climate crisis head-on while making people’s lives better. One way we do that is by holding politicians accountable to their climate commitments and shining a light on the impact of climate policy, good or bad. This election, the choice could not be more stark.
This election isn’t just about choosing between two candidates—it’s about choosing between two radically different futures.
Donald Trump’s Project 2025 would cost the economy billions, jack up household bills, and rob us of a safer climate future. It isn’t just a policy proposal—it’s a full-scale assault on progress. It would dismantle clean energy programs, roll back pollution standards, and undermine America’s global leadership in the clean energy economy.
If Trump’s Project 2025 becomes reality, America could lose 1.7 million jobs by 2030, and household energy costs could rise by $32 billion. The health impacts could be even more devastating: hundreds of thousands of new asthma cases and over 25,000 premature deaths by 2050, with marginalized communities bearing the brunt.
This election isn’t just about choosing between two candidates—it’s about choosing between two radically different futures. Vice President Harris offers a path where clean energy fuels economic growth, cuts costs, creates jobs, and protects our communities. Trump’s Project 2025, on the other hand, represents a future where corrupt polluters run the show, slamming the door shut on saving our planet—and blocking all the benefits that would come with it.
We don’t have to settle for Trump’s outdated, short-sighted approach. Continued climate leadership, supported by actionable policies, offers a pathway to a prosperous and healthy future. Earlier this year, Evergreen Action published a roadmap for the next president, built in collaboration with climate, environmental justice, and labor partners, to build on the Biden-Harris administration’s historic climate achievements and fight climate change while building a thriving clean energy economy.
This plan would set us on track to achieve 100% clean energy, revitalize American industry by onshoring manufacturing, create millions of good-paying union jobs, and ensure we lead the world in clean energy. And, our plan would make polluters pay, finally holding Big Oil accountable for its role in fueling the climate crisis.
Our plan would make polluters pay, finally holding Big Oil accountable for its role in fueling the climate crisis.
Rather than tie us to the expensive, polluting fossil fuels of the past, we can grow our clean energy economy that strengthens the middle class. Electing a Harris-Walz administration and advocating for robust climate policies like those in our plan can create 3.9 million jobs, save households $39 billion in energy costs, and protect thousands of lives by 2030 compared to Trump’s Project 2025.
In Pennsylvania, grants through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are propelling the Commonwealth’s clean energy industries, creating thousands of jobs, and ensuring American workers lead in producing clean energy technology. Meanwhile, Michigan is seeing an economic boom supported by federal investments that are projected to cut household energy bills by $713 annually by 2040 and generate $27.8 billion in public health savings.
Trump’s promise to repeal these investments wouldn’t just kill jobs and stunt economic growth—it would destroy America’s competitiveness in clean energy manufacturing and deployment.
Despite Trump’s insistence once again that climate change is “one of the great scams”—even as Hurricanes Milton and Helene brought catastrophic flooding across the South, killing at least 300 people and leaving thousands stranded and without power—climate change is no longer a distant threat. It’s powering a growing barrage of record-breaking weather events every year. Higher ocean temperatures fuel rapidly intensifying storms, making hurricane season even more deadly. Arizona is enduring record-breaking heatwaves, while states like North Carolina and Texas are being hit by once-in-1,000-year rainfalls with alarming frequency.
This is our last shot. If we make the right choice, we’ll not only preserve a safer future for all Americans, but we’ll reap significant benefits—good-paying union jobs, lower energy costs, and a healthier environment. The alternative? A future with rising temperatures, more extreme weather, and higher prices.
New Englanders are fighting for a just transition to a better electric system.
Our electric system is intentionally complicated. We are expected to receive our bills from the electric companies every month, pay without question, and have little say in what that money is used for.
In the New England, New York, and PJM regions, a portion of our electric bills every month goes to a mysterious “auction” in the “capacity markets” that promise power plants funding into the future even if they never operate. We are told this is the system we have to work within to ensure reliable energy. But that is not true.
Just because a system is in place does not mean it is the best way to operate. When I was in elementary school I learned how to use the lattice method for multiplication. My Mom taught me long multiplication. Both methods got me to the solution to the equation. So why can’t our electric grid think like this?
The time is now—for energy efficiency, community conservation, and clean energy in New England and beyond.
Our regional electric grid operators here in New England, ISO New England (ISO-NE), oversee a process called the “Forward Capacity Auction,” which enables fossil fuel power plants across the region to stay in operation. They claim that this market approach will ensure certain energy sources can stay on our grid for backup energy. Instead of being a mechanism for reliable energy supplies though, this auction has become a huge waste of money and an enabler of climate chaos. Right now this system keeps fossil fuel peaker plants online. Peaker plants are those oil, methane gas, and coal burning plants that are only called on during peak energy usage—like during a cold snap or heatwave—and thus only get turned on a handful of days a year. These plants currently get hundreds of thousands of dollars to mostly sit idle.
This doesn’t have to be the way we handle our electric grid. We can do better—we just have to imagine better.
The No Coal No Gas campaign showed up at the fossil fuel peaker plants in New Hampshire this August to demand a transition to clean energy, community conservation, and a better grid system. There are three peaker plants in New Hampshire without closing dates that are really harming our communities: Newington Station on the Piscataqua River, Lost Nation in Groveton, and White Lake in Tamworth. Our electric bills gave each of these plants hundreds of thousands of dollars last year despite the fact that they ran just a handful of times (10-15% of our bills fund the system this money came from). These three plants burn oil, methane gas, or jet fuel on the occasion that they do get turned on, resulting in all sorts of pollution impacting the communities they inhabit.
The thing is, if we changed the way we managed our energy grid, we wouldn’t need these peaker plants. They could easily be replaced with solar and battery storage. The regional electric grid operators could prioritize more immediate energy conservation resources both from the public and from large energy users to reduce the peaker energy load so that we don’t need as much backup on the grid. We could improve energy efficiency across the board to reduce the amount of energy we need as a region, even with an increase in electric vehicles. We could decrease electricity bills for people across the region if we didn’t need to promise all this money to peaker plants.
We can have clean energy and reliable energy—this isn’t a compromising situation. Transitioning off of fossil fuels does not make our energy less reliable—especially when those fossil fuels cause the devastating storms we’ve seen lately that cost a whole lot of money to recover from. On top of that, most of the failures on our grid, including huge price spikes like what the grid saw on December 24, 2022, were caused by fossil fuel plants. This situation is reflective of the problems other regional grids across the country are facing as climate change gets worse.
So what’s the hold up? ISO-NE board and staff members who say, “This is the way it’s been.” Elected officials and Granite Shore Power (who owns the New Hampshire peaker plants) who want to protect the profits of fossil fuel corporations. Grid operators who claim that electric grid management needs to be “fuel neutral” in their policies. The fact is, we need to stop thinking inside these tiny boxes we’ve given ourselves. If new ideas are not working in the system we have, it means it’s time to change the system.
When I watched friends drop a massive banner down the side of Newington’s smokestack just a few weeks ago, I thought about how they were not stuck in what doesn’t seem possible. Instead, they acted. They didn’t think a 175-foot banner would be impossible to make. They just made it. They showed the owners of that peaker plant that we can do difficult things, including transitioning off of oil and gas. They showed all of us that we can imagine a better future together.
I walk into energy regulatory meetings with experts even though the people there made those spaces inaccessible to the general public and community organizers. I have been working to understand the complexities of the energy system even though the people I’m challenging to think outside the system don’t want me there. I know a transition to clean energy and justice-focused solutions to the climate crisis won’t happen overnight, but I also know that people in positions of power are dragging their feet in the fossil-fueled past.
We don’t need fossil fuel peaker plants when much simpler solutions to energy reliability exist. The time is now—for energy efficiency, community conservation, and clean energy in New England and beyond. I know we can build an energy system that works for the everyday people who this grid is meant to serve.
"There can be no doubt that citizens across the world are saying to their leaders, you have to act and, above all, have to act faster," a U.N. official said. "This is an issue that almost everyone, everywhere, can agree on."
A large majority of the global population, including people who live in oil, gas, and coal producing countries, supports a fast transition to clean energy and a phaseout of fossil fuels, a poll released Thursday showed.
Across 77 countries, 72% of those surveyed supported a quick fossil fuel phaseout, while an even higher percentage, 80%, supported stronger climate action in general, according to the poll, called Peoples' Climate Vote and conducted for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) with the University of Oxford and GeoPoll.
"There can be no doubt that citizens across the world are saying to their leaders, you have to act and, above all, have to act faster," UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner toldThe Guardian. "This is an issue that almost everyone, everywhere, can agree on."
📣 Our #PeoplesClimateVote 2024 results are live! The world’s largest standalone public opinion survey on #ClimateChange.
The results are clear. People want more #ClimateAction, and they want it now.
Explore a world of views on the climate crisis: https://t.co/mJsEzN3NGy pic.twitter.com/2kwA4KcPnn
— UN Development (@UNDP) June 20, 2024
People in most major fossil fuel producing nations support a quick energy transition in their own countries, the poll showed. In the United States, the world's largest oil and gas producer, 53% supported either a "very" or "somewhat" quick phaseout; in Saudi Arabia, the second largest, 75% did so; and in China and India, the leading coal producers, the figures were 80% and 76%, respectively.
The poll also showed overwhelming support for transnational cooperation, even if it requires setting aside other differences: 86% of those surveyed said want countries to tackle climate change together. Steiner called this a "stunning" level of consensus.
Steiner noted that fossil fuel subsidies distort the market and subvert the public will for change.
"There are very narrow, self-interested agendas that maintain artificially inflated [profits] for fossil fuel-based industries that ultimately are coming at the cost of everyone," he said.
The poll—the largest standalone public opinion survey on climate change to date, building on a first edition that was run in 2021—clarifies the will of the global public and strengthens the moral case for climate action, commentators said.
"Brilliant to see clear, credible evidence that the overwhelming majority of people across the world—oil rentier economy or not—want to see transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy 'quickly,'" X user Dave Drabble wrote. "Let's not let oil and gas interests determine our fate."
Similarly rejecting the influence of fossil fuel interests, Steiner said, "It is so important we let the people speak for themselves."