Gwenaëlle Avice-Huet: "Make America green", "green dollars" as if it were raining

The contrast is striking. And even alarming for the world’s leading economic power, a few weeks away from a decisive COP26 for the climate. Since 1990, greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 5% in the United States. Over three decades, the European Union for its part has reduced them by 24%. Faced with the global objective of combating climate change, it is urgent that the Americans take their part in the immense project that lies ahead.

However, many initiatives have already been undertaken across the Atlantic. At the local level, the States are in the process of maneuvering. California strongly promotes electric vehicles, and has just passed the obligation to equip all new constructions with solar panels and electricity storage. Texas is now the leading producer of renewable energy. The private sector is also mobilizing strongly. American groups, such as Gafam or Walmart, signed in 2020 more than half of the green electricity purchase contracts signed worldwide.

However, to turn the tide, local and entrepreneurial dynamics are not enough. The boost must come from the federal level. The candidate Joe Biden has promised it, his mandate must mark the historic turning point of a renovation of infrastructures in the service of an economy which is at the same time greener, less consuming of fossil resources and creator of growth.

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The federal state in support

The Senate, divided between Democrats and Republicans, found a consensus in August on an amount approaching $ 1 trillion to green investments and create new jobs. This text, called the “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act”, had yet to be put to the vote of representatives in recent days, then to be reinforced by a second wave of funding. “Green dollars” as if it were raining, coming to garnish a catalog of financial incentives to build an electricity network more resilient in the face of climatic events, to develop renewable energies such as wind, solar and hydrogen projects , as well as installing 250,000 electric vehicle chargers on alternative fuel corridors (roads dedicated to alternative engines), etc.

The budgetary effort is impressive! But will it be enough to make the dream a reality and achieve the ambition – very proactive given the recent trajectory – of reducing American emissions by 50% by 2030?

The question of credibility must be asked. And first on the calibration. The sums mobilized to rehabilitate the electricity networks seem insufficient on a continental country scale, especially since private operators will not spontaneously invest in the sector. 10 billion are reserved for the capture and sequestration of CO2, but the technologies are only emerging and still extremely expensive. Public transport and multimodality are endowed with 40 billion, but it is above all the road infrastructure that will be strengthened. The energy performance of buildings, at the origin of a third of emissions when we also take into account the electricity consumed, is discussed, but the allocation of 3.5 billion over five years is too low to carry out a real program of renovation of energy sieves at the scale of a country with very marked thermal amplitudes and where the cost and speed of construction prevail above all.

Not just a big deal

Moreover, this abundance of liquidity masks an absence of incentives to change behavior, both for companies and for individuals. Electric mobility, for example, is being promoted. But without CO2 quotas imposed on producers as in the EU, there is no guarantee that the additional electricity will be clean in a country which subscribes to gas and coal. Encouraging Americans to conserve energy is not at the heart of the agenda either.

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However, let’s look at the full half of the glass. With the classic but supercharged panoply of federal aid, the Biden administration is making the central bet that the private sector and funders will transform the economy. They will seize this cocktail of 1000 billion tax incentives and subsidies to decarbonize production tools, make research laboratories work, move from prototypes to the industrial stage, create new professions and finally direct the demand of companies and individuals towards greener products. The truth about the magnitude of this transformation will obviously be in the numbers. See you over the next few years to see if the market now actually has a green thumb, and if this stimulus plan will untie the Gordian knot of carbon-free growth!