2023: A Year Of Pivotal Climate And Clean Energy Wins

The year 2023 may go down as a critical turning point in the fight to stop global warming, because of the historic legal wins, clean energy investments and commitment to transition away from fossil fuels across the globe. This is even as the planet experienced the hottest year on record, according to NOAA, and many forces fought addressing it.

The powers-that-be are now “understanding climate change as a threat multiplier,” and mobilizing “towards creating an opportunity multiplier in the transition away from fossil fuels.” That’s how Sherri Goodman, former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security and currently Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate & Security, described where we are to the BBC upon her return from the huge UN climate conference known as COP28 recently.

Here are seven pivotal wins for addressing climate change in 2023:

1. Youth climate activists win a lawsuit against Montana for violating their constitutional rights to a safe environment: The Montana judge ruled the state government knew about the dangers of climate change when Governor Greg Gianforte signed into law a bill that enabled the state to “not include an evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions and corresponding impacts to the climate in the state or beyond the state's borders.” Signing it, therefore, was a violation of the youths’/plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. Similar cases in other states are in process.

2. Financial reporting on climate change impacts now required: California enacted two climate-related financial reporting laws in 2023 – the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act; and Greenhouse Gases: Climate-Related Financial Risk Act – which consider potential blueprints for rules the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is finalizing. The International Sustainability Standards Board’s standards were endorsed by the international body overseeing securities commissions globally in 2023 too, calling on those regulators to incorporate these standards into their regulatory frameworks. The Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures also issued its recommendations in 2023 to quantify the value nature provides to the economy and enable including it in financial reporting.

3. $400 million in federal funding from the Infrastructure Investment Act rolled out: Shovels went in the ground in 2023 on some of the 40,000 projects that have received the over $400 million allocated so far from the Infrastructure Investment Act (aka IIJA or BIL for its “bipartisan” passage) passed by the last Congress (under Speaker Nancy Pelosi). They include funding for the super-fast repair of the overpass that collapsed in Pennsylvania earlier this year; expected to take months, it was done in two weeks. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which has given the U.S. infrastructure a grade of “D” since 1998, says, “The BIL is the largest-ever investment in our nation’s built environment, providing $1.2 trillion towards all 17 categories of infrastructure outlined in ASCE’s 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure.”

4. $225 billion in new clean energy manufacturing investments, leveraging funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA): The Clean Investment Monitor (MIT and the Rhodium Group) is reporting that, since passage of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated $369 billion toward transitioning to a clean energy economy. “There was $225 billion in new investment in the manufacture and deployment of clean energy, clean vehicle, building electrification and carbon management technology in the U.S. over the past year, a 38% annual increase.” These include: over 272 new clean energy projects in 44 states; 91 new battery manufacturing sites (93,000 new jobs); 65 EV manufacturing plants (32,000 new jobs); and 84 new wind and solar manufacturing plants Dr. Vanessa Chan, Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of the Office Of Technology Transition at the Department of Energy, described the IRA in an exclusive interview on Electric Ladies Podcast as “private sector-led, government enabled.” These new investments reflect that the strategy is working. Seventy-three percent (73%) of Americans say they want these investments too.

5. COP28 commitment to “transition away from fossil fuels”: After much concern that this United Nations climate conference known as COP28 was being held in a petrostate, the United Arab Emirates, and led by the president of an oil and gas company, the final agreement of the ~200 parties did reflect what many call an historic agreement to transition the global economy away from fossil fuels. The UN press release describes it as an agreement to “take actions towards achieving, at a global scale, a tripling of renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements by 2030. The list also includes accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power, phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, and other measures that drive the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”

6. $700 million committed for vulnerable developing nations from COP28: Part of that “just” transition is another historic agreement at COP28. It’s “on the operationalization of the loss and damage fund and funding arrangements,” with over $700 million in commitments, according to the UN. It’s insufficient for the magnitude of the threat these nations face, but it’s a significant start.

7. Private sector is ramping up ESG investments, despite political culture wars: Studies in 2023 found that “the vast majority of senior investors and business executives are planning to increase ESG investment over the next five years,” as ESG Today put it – environment, social, governance. Saying ESG is now “mainstream,” a whopping “90% of investors (are) expecting enhanced returns,” and executives see burnished corporate reputations from these initiatives as well, Bloomberg Intelligence found.

These wins for the climate in 2023 reflect a private sector is focused on the opportunities in addressing climate change, not just the risks. Even as the U.S. struggles with the economy and political pressures while trying to decarbonize, Goodman told the BBC, that’s “why it's important that there are so many non-governmental and public sector leaders sort of pushing for that change. And then increasingly, the private sector, seeing that there are economic opportunities available to decarbonize in every single sector of society.”