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The Blue Ridge Fire continues to burn near Los Angeles.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Earlier this month, the apocalyptic wildfires on the Pacific Coast achieved a grim milestone: 4 million acres burned in California alone. Though much of our national attention has since focused elsewhere, this year’s wildfires represent a significant, real-world threat from climate change.
These blazes have decimated entire towns, taken lives, and produced toxic smoke that has reached all the way to the East Coast. They provide an ominous signal of what lies ahead if we don’t tackle climate change and reframe our society around a serious commitment to sustainability.
Climate scientists predict more frequent and uncontrolled wildfires as droughts become more common and other aspects of climate change emerge.
Action is required on multiple fronts to move toward a sustainable future. Responding to climate change requires innovation in technologies, policies, communications, business practices and public engagement. But current policy has not fostered the innovation needed.
First and foremost, we need a strategy of deep decarbonization that moves the energy foundation of our society to clean and renewable sources of electricity. But the path to a low-carbon future will also require ramped-up investments in energy efficiency, better batteries and storage technologies, and smart grids, homes and appliances.
Pathways are available to address each of these sustainability challenges. But our current approach to environmental protection does not put these possibilities into sharp focus.
Red light, green light
To deliver transformative change, we need to move away from our existing environmental policy framework based on “red lights” and government mandates which tell all of us what NOT to do — but do very little to inspire fresh thinking, spur technology development or channel capital into the infrastructure required for a sustainable economy.
A successful response to climate change and these other sustainability challenges requires a system of “green lights” — incentives that inspire entrepreneurs and creative talents across our society to deliver innovations in clean energy, sustainable production, low-impact products, new financing mechanisms and broader public engagement.
Examples of “green lights” could include emissions allowances, such as the program established by the 1990 Clean Air Act to cut acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide emissions or the escalating price on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that harmed the ozone layer. These economic incentives functioned as signals to investors for the need to innovate, drove private capital and successfully delivered on environmental goals.
Today, more financial incentives are needed, particularly for entities with limited access to capital. Green banks and green bonds make capital available at attractive rates for borrowers and encourage investment in environmental infrastructure.
Existing environmental policy includes some green lights, but their success as incentives has been muted by uneven implementation. For example, tax credits for renewable electricity have floundered due to uncertainty over whether Congress will continue to fund these programs. Unpredictability and unreliability undermine business confidence in the value of incentives.
Just as drivers will act with caution on a road where traffic lights are failing, clean energy investors will pull back in the face of uncertainty over the government’s clean energy incentives.
When I became commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the state had a goal of 20% renewable power by 2020, but had made little progress toward this goal.
It became clear that the state needed better incentives and green lights. In response, we launched the first-in-the-nation green bank and committed to use limited public dollars to leverage private-capital to scale up clean energy innovation and deployment.
To further drive development in clean energy production, and to cut renewable electricity prices, the department debuted in 2011 a new, market-based strategy: we offered a 15-year electricity-purchasing commitment to the project developer who promised the lowest prices for clean energy.
This explicit “green light” – the presence of a 15-year electricity supply contract – made the projects bankable and provided far more certainty than the mere promise that Connecticut would someday receive 20% of its electricity from renewable sources. With this green light in place, the share of renewable power sold in Connecticut has risen from 5% in 2010 to about 22% in 2020.
Yale University Press
Our current policy approach has not delivered the change we need to prevent catastrophic wildfires. A serious response to climate change requires a new national commitment to sustainability as a core value underpinning American life and public policy going forward. Halting climate change is the long-term imperative for stopping out-of-control wildfires, but to achieve the emissions reductions needed to accomplish this, we need “green lights” that provide certainty about the regulatory future.
Read: Better forest management means thinning trees — and will cost billions of dollars
And: As wildfires rage, Southern California utility on the defensive for not shutting off power
Wildfires have already claimed lives, property and our sense of security. They have the potential to become stronger, last longer and be more damaging than ever before if we take no action. We must address the threat — and present reality — of climate change now and redouble our efforts to establish the foundations for a sustainable future.
Daniel C. Esty is the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University, former commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and editor of “A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future.”
Also: Can Burger King’s reusable packaging change fast food forever?
And: Fracking and the ‘Green New Deal’: Here’s where Trump and Biden stand on climate change
