New U.S. law to address climate change

According to the w ebsi t e worldpopulationreview.com, the United States (U.S.) is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases which are causing global warming and climate change. It was therefore a big setback when on June 1, 2017, U.S. PresidentDonald Trumpannounced that the U.S. would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate c h a n g e mitigation,contendingthattheagreementwould "undermine" the U.S. economy, and put the U.S. "at a permanent disadvantage."

However on January 20, on his first day in office, President Biden signed the instrument to bring the U.S. back into the Paris Agreement. The U.S. became a Party to the international agreement again. As one of the top emitter of greenhouse gases, the participation of the U.S. is crucial in attaining the objective of the Paris Agreement which is to limit the rise in mean global temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels.

In fulfilling their commitment, the U.S. made a historic move when President Joe Biden signed into law the ‘Inflation Reduction Act of 2022’which targets to reduce the U.S. carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030. Here are some key features of this law.

-The investments in this law will reduce emissions in every sector of the economy, substantially reducing emissions from electricity production, transportation, industrial manufacturing, buildings, and agriculture. It will provide a range of incentives to consumers to relieve the high costs of energy and decrease utility bills. This includes direct consumer incentives to buy energy efficient and electric appliances, clean vehicles, and rooftop-solar, and invest in home energy efficiency, with a significant portion of the funding going to lower- income households and disadvantaged communities. This includes $4,000 consumer tax credit for lower/middle income individuals to buy used- clean vehicles, and up to $7,500 tax credit to buy new clean vehicles.

It will support energy reliability and cleaner energy production coupled with historic investments in American clean energy manufact ur i ng.

It includes over $60 billion to on-shore clean energy manufacturing in the U.S. across the full supply chain of clean energy and transportation technologies.

-It will make historic investments to ensure that rural communities are at the forefront of climate solutions. The investments affirm the central role of agricultural producers and forest landowners in climate solutions by investing in climatesmart agriculture, forest restoration and land conservation. It also makes significant investments in clean energy development in rural communities.

Small nations are urging developed countries make good on their promises to address global warming. The Philippines and several island nations, despite emitting small quantities of greenhouse gases, will suffer from the impacts of climate change. Our country is now being hit by super typhoons presumably due to global warming.