Dive Brief:
With the cost of clean energy technologies plummeting, social factors may prove to be final barriers to a deep decarbonization of the U.S. economy, according to a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Thanks to a decade of rapidly declining costs, decarbonization is not only technically and financially feasible it s actually the most economical path forward, according to the NASEM report. The report also projects that decarbonization could add 1-2 million jobs to the U.S. economy.
However, without policies to ensure an equitable transition that does not leave economically and racially diverse communities behind, the U.S. risks yellow vest social uprisings that could derail decarbonization, according to Stephen Pacala, a professor focused on climate change and systems ecology at Princeton University.