Climate Tech Break: Climate Month 2022
I’m Brad Carl with Silverline, a leading PR agency focused on the exciting developments in decarbonization, and sustainability. The time is now for clean energy and bold solutions. and this is your Climate Tech Break.
It’s been a busy fall season in the climate tech industry! Over this past summer, the Biden administration signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, otherwise known as the I-R-A. The I-R-A is the largest piece of federal legislation ever to address climate change. it will invest $391 billion in provisions relating to energy security and climate change.
As an industry, we already are seeing the impact of this legislation on momentum around critical climate tech and ESG initiatives.
Climate Week 2022
Just this past week, the Silverline team attended Climate Group’s 14th Climate Week in New York City. For those of you unfamiliar with this event, the organizers put together nearly 500 events covering a wide range of themes from ESG, buildings and infrastructure, environmental justice, to mobility, policy and much more.
The U.N. General Assembly and Clinton Global Initiative formed the core of climate conversations and convening for government and corporate leaders from around the globe. Of note were discussions on offshore wind and hydrogen development led by the Norwegian Consulate with facilitation from Amy Harder at Breakthrough Energy’s Cipher.
The nest events at the Javits Center were chock full of detailed and informative discussions on infrastructure projects. The discussions, one of which was led by the Alliance to Save Energy, offered best practices on moving infrastructure projects from concept to reality and also reviewed the challenges in doing so.
Meanwhile, back at Clinton Global, a new ‘Climate Action Toolkit’ was unveiled by Elemental Excelerator for frontline city mayors of traditionally underserved communities. This toolkit is intended to support leaders to increase opportunities for populations most impacted by climate injustice and increase access to clean transportation as well as affordable renewable energy. We consider this toolkit a win for environmental justice advocates across the United States.
RE+ Returns to Anaheim
Our West Coast Silverline team also joined more than 20-thousand renewable industry colleagues at RE+ in Anaheim, California. This event, which includes the well-known SPI conference, is the largest clean energy gathering in the U.S.
The Inflation Reduction Act impact was top of mind at RE+. the legislation is projected to lead to 69-percent more solar deployment by 2032 –sunsational news you might say. And conference-goers were certainly in a celebratory mood, as this marked the first large-scale in-person clean energy gathering since the pandemic began. In addition to delving into best approaches to make use of the IRA, there was a great deal of discussion on domestic manufacturing of solar panels and batteries as well as how to grapple with those tricky interconnection queues and long permitting processes. Overall, the conference focused more on opportunities than limitations with a “can do spirit” not seen in years.
Also, if you haven’t claimed your copy of Tom Weirich’s We took the Risk, it’s available on Amazon, and we’re watching it trend under the #petroleum hashtag. Hats off to Tom for creating a book about renewable industry trailblazers and their real-world stories of grit and triumph over the odds.
We rounded out this important month discussing energy certainty in our uncertain world. This is not a one size fits all approach. It’s a global effort and more urgent than ever before; however, we are seeing the greatest commitment to resilience that we’ve ever seen, and the challenge now is using those resources to change the course of human history. One day at a time.
From Silverline Studios, I’m Brad Carl, Power through the Week.
