The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividends Bill (“Greener than the Green New Deal,” Our Readers’ Views, April 4) isn’t greener than the Green New Deal, but that doesn’t make it a bad deal. In fact, experts feel the Green New Deal will work best with a carbon tax and the Carbon Dividends bill is the best one around (citizensclimatelobby.org). We don’t have to choose, we need both: “The bottom line is that the Green New Deal could work, but only with carbon pricing,” said John Reilly, co-director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
The Green New Deal’s goal is net-zero emissions by 2030 while the Carbon Dividends bill aims for a 40 percent reduction by 2030. The scientific community has made it clear that we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions as close to zero as possible by 2030 or we’ll risk “catastrophic” global warming (National Academy of Sciences).
The Green New Deal may not reach that goal, but by expanding the TVA’s authority nationally, they’ll be able to override state and local political roadblocks to clean energy that Carbon Dividends can’t. And they’ll build the 21st century national power grid we’ll need for a clean-energy economy.
