LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Georgia’s emissions reduction plan must include decisive power-industry reforms

To the Editor:

Based on existing reports, it appears that Georgia’s so-called climate plan, actually an emissions reduction plan, funded through the federal Inflation Reduction Act, is already being misguided by political motives. While the planning proposal provides urgently needed opportunities for substantially reducing the emission of heat-trapping gases, as described, disturbing questions remain unanswered.

State officials have said that emphasis will be placed on reducing transportation emissions by hastening the conversion to electric vehicles. While transportation generates more emissions than Georgia’s other sectors, according to online sources it is only marginally worse than the power-generating industry — 37% of emissions from transportation, 34% from power.

Yet, there’s been little discussion of shifting to clean energy among initial comments reported about the state’s emissions reduction plan.

In Georgia, many electric vehicles will be recharged with power produced by burning natural gas, a fuel linked to methane leaks having far worse heat-trapping effects than carbon dioxide. Unjustifiably, using natural gas to produce electricity is a mainstay in Georgia Power’s 20-year plan, approved by the Public Service Commission last year. According to official sources, 45% of total power generated in Georgia is currently fueled by natural gas.

Considering dangerously accelerating temperature extremes, their costs and ever-worsening consequences, heat-trapping emissions must be minimized as soon as possible. Burning natural gas while continuing to impede rooftop solar, as adopted in current state energy policy, severely undermines that vital goal.

Unless Georgia’s emissions reduction plan corrects these fundamental contradictions, the endeavor will fail to prevent disastrously escalating climate-heating impacts.

David Kyler

Saint Simons Island

David Kyler is a member of the Center for a Sustainable Coast.