Obama 2016 budget a major headway in tackling climate change

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Barrack Obama has initiated one more step towards tackling climate change issues, by announcing a $3.99 trillion budget, with a number of proposals chalked out for curbing global warming.

The White House also wants to give $1.29 billion to advance its Global Climate Change Initiative, which includes $500 million for US contributions to the UN’s Green Climate Fund, the first installment of the $3 billion pledged by the US last November.

The proposal highlights certain plans to be implemented in coming years to eliminate the climate change issues in U.S.

photo courtesy CTV News
photo courtesy CTV News

The budget offers $7.4 billion for developing clean energy technology strategies through the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Agriculture, and the National Science Foundation.

The budget also suggests updating the national energy grid to absorb more renewable energy, reducing the costs of clean energy, finding cheaper solutions for carbon capture and storage from fossil fuels, and doing research to measure methane emissions that leak from natural gas operations.

In addition, the budget proposes for the permanent fixing of tax incentives over solar and wind industries.

It is to be mentioned that when Production Tax Credit was in effect earlier, the wind energy developers enjoyed a tax break of 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour of energy produced for the first 10 years of operation.

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In addition, an investment Tax Credit was announced for solar assets providing a 30 percent federal tax credit for solar installations which will expire at the end of 2016.

The budget has also kept aside a $4 billion fund to encourage states to make faster and deeper cuts to power plant emissions than would be required under the rules proposed by Obama’s EPA last year.

Further, the budget is expected to empower states with a financial incentive to expand clean energy initiatives. States can get these incentives by working together in regional partnerships to cut greenhouse gases.

Besides, the budget contains a range of proposals chalked out to guard the nation against natural disasters, tackle drought, wildfires, and coastal flooding.

Sabeena Wahid
editor@greentechlead.com

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