Contrary to its headline, “US lagging behind others in reforestation” was full of good news.
Global reforestation is making a dent in the global carbon emissions that fuel climate change. Surprisingly, China leads the pack with 66 billion trees planted since 1970. Tiny Pakistan is planting a billion trees, Australia’s goal is 20 million and Brazil will reforest 12 million hectares of Amazon rainforest by 2030. Wow!
Although lagging in tree count, the U.S. has a bipartisan bill in Congress that would effectively reduce our carbon emissions by 40 percent in 12 years and 90 percent by 2050 — the scale the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is needed to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees C.
HR 763, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, will put a low but increasing fee on fossil fuels and return those fees equitably to Americans as monthly dividends. The fee incentivizes a clean energy economy, will create 2 million new jobs and save over 200,000 lives by reducing pollution. The dividend protects America’s most vulnerable from rising energy costs and doesn’t grow government. HR 763 lets the market do the work.
Tell Congressman O’Halleran, Senator Sinema and Senator McSally, we want this win-win climate bill.
SHAWN NEWELL
Arizona Daily Sun April 1, 2019
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