How to solve global warming for half the cost and twice the jobs as dirty energy

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Greenpeace, the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), and Dr. Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress today released a report commissioned from the German Aerospace Center (the German equivalent of NASA) that shows how the United States can meet the energy needs of a growing economy and achieve science-based cuts in global warming pollution – without nuclear power or coal. The report, entitled “Energy [R]evolution,” is co-authored by Greenpeace and EREC and includes a foreword by Dr. R.K. Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report finds that off-the-shelf clean energy technology can cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels by at least 23 percent from current levels by 2020 and 85 percent by 2050 (equal to a 12 percent cut by 2020 and an 83 percent cut by 2050 from 1990 levels) – at half the cost and double the job-creation of what it would take to meet U.S. energy needs with dirty energy sources. …

“What this report shows is that doing what science says is necessary won’t just provide the planet a living future, it actually will create far more jobs and save far more money than business as usual,” said Greenpeace Global Warming Campaign Director Steven Biel.  “And it will do it without exposing us to the unnecessary risks and pointless boondoggles that would come with any further investments in nuclear or coal.”

The blueprint details the specific technologies and timetables necessary to achieve these goals, such as:

• By using the most energy efficient technologies, total primary energy demand will decline by 24 percent by 2050, while under the reference scenario demand will increase by 40 percent.
• Renewable energy will grow from just 8.9 percent of U.S. electricity generation in 2005 to 95.2 percent in 2050.
• Electricity from nuclear, coal, and oil will be completely phased out by 2050.
• The savings in fuel costs under the clean energy scenario is nearly double the additional up-front investment needed to end our reliance on fossil fuels.

Greenpeace & Senator Sanders: How to Solve Global Warming for Half the Cost and Twice the Jobs as Dirty Energy

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