![](https://www.witf.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_5232-1280x853.jpg)
US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh, Sept. 22, 2022.
Reid R. Frazier / StateImpact Pennsylvania
US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh, Sept. 22, 2022.
Reid R. Frazier / StateImpact Pennsylvania
Reid R. Frazier / StateImpact Pennsylvania
US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh, Sept. 22, 2022.
Reid R. Frazier / StateImpact Pennsylvania
US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh, Sept. 22, 2022.
Leaders from over 30 countries met Thursday to discuss ways to reduce carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gas emissions in everything from steelmaking to trucking.Â
US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry said last monthâs passage of the Inflation Reduction Act will help the US meet President Bidenâs goal of a 50 percent reduction in climate warming greenhouse gases by 2030. He said the law is spurring businesses to invest in clean energy.Â
âWe will hit our 50 to 52% reduction, if not more, and I believe it will be more. Why? Because of the rate and pace at which technology is already moving,â Kerry said.Â
Kerry said it will be the private sector, not governments, who will provide the funding for a clean energy transition. He said the tax incentives in the IRA were the billâs most important parts.Â
âThat I think is going to do more than almost anything else in the bill,â he said. âWe don’t have to have government making choices about winners and losers. The marketplace is going to choose.â
Scientists say the world is running out of time to lower carbon dioxide emissions to limit the worst impacts of climate change.Â
A big issue in upcoming climate talks will be how much richer countries â responsible for much  of the worldâs warming â will pay poorer countries to help transition to a low-carbon economy.Â
But Kerry said governments donât have the kind of money it will take to transition away from fossil fuelsâonly companies and private capital do.Â
âNo government is going to solve this problem. No government has enough money to be able to solve this problem,â Kerry said. Â
Some of that investment is likely going into hydrogen, a zero-carbon fuel. On Thursday, the Department of Energy announced the first round of funding for six to 10 hydrogen hubs around the country. The Department is using $7 billion from the Infrastructure Bill signed by President Biden last year.Â
âThese âŠhubs are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lay the foundation for the hydrogen economy of tomorrowâone that will lift our economy, protect the planet, and improve our health,â said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, in a statement. âThis national hydrogen strategy will help us accelerate the development and deployment of technologies to realize the full potential of clean hydrogen energy for generations to come.â
A group of businesses in Western Pennsylvania is vying for one of the hubs, and is proposing to use natural gas from the regionâs fracking industry to produce hydrogen. The proposal also involves burying carbon dioxide emissions from that process underground.Â
But not everyone in the region is enthusiastic about this prospect.
 Edith Abeyta lives in North Braddock, near Pittsburgh. Her house is near a steel mill run by US Steel, one of the companies vying for the hub. She came to a âClean Energy Justiceâ protest near the conference because she worries a hub will mean more natural gas wells in the region, more pipelines, and unknown impacts from carbon storage. Sheâs all for clean energy, she says, but doesnât want to come on the backs of those like her, in âfrontlineâ communities.Â
âIt’s just like it’s more danger and harm to a place where we’re already trying to remedy all those harms and dangers,â Abeyta said.Â
Abeyta says communities in the region should have a say in the decision to build a hydrogen hub. The deadline for the hubsâ initial proposals is Nov. 7.Â
StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.
(listed by story count)
StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.
Climate Solutions, a collaboration of news organizations, educational institutions and a theater company, uses engagement, education and storytelling to help central Pennsylvanians toward climate change literacy, resilience and adaptation. Our work will amplify how people are finding solutions to the challenges presented by a warming world.