Title
Supporting the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.
Body
WHEREAS, based on its core values of equity, resiliency, sustainability and health, Saint Paul is committed to reducing emissions by 50% by 2030 from business as usual and being carbon neutral by 2050, offsetting emissions so no net carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere; and
WHEREAS, Saint Paul endorsed the Carbon Fee and Dividend Legislation in 2018 (RES 18-1137); and
WHEREAS, Minnesota is already experiencing climate change with warmer winters, more intense precipitation events, and flooding that damages infrastructure and homes as well as new disease vectors that impact human health; and
WHEREAS, further increases in global temperature will cause increasingly longer, more intense heat waves and more intense and dangerous storms, and as such pose imminent threats and long-term danger to the health of residents and the natural environment of Saint Paul and the nation; and
WHEREAS, limiting global warming to 1.5°C will require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure including transport and buildings, and industrial systems; and
WHEREAS, the United Nations climate science body said in a monumental climate report in 2018 that to keep global warming to 1.5°C over pre-Industrial levels we must cut carbon pollution by 45% by 2030, leaving only 10 years to make massive and unprecedented changes to global energy infrastructure to limit global warming to moderate levels; and
WHEREAS, four former chairs of the Federal Reserve, 27 Nobel Laureate Economists, 15 former Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, and two former Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Treasury have endorsed carbon fee and dividend as the most cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions and protect the most vulnerable families from rising energy prices; and
WHEREAS, to begin to correct this market failure, Congress can enact the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend A...
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