April 19, 2021
SALT LAKE CITY – When President Joe Biden hosts a virtual summit on Earth Day, he not only seeks to engage world powers on environmental issues, but also to re-establish federal partnerships with Utah and other states.
The president has invited 40 global leaders to attend the Leaders Summit on Climate, which begins Thursday.
In addition to affirming America’s leadership on climate change on the world stage, he aims to help states cut greenhouse gas emissions and build a clean energy economy.
Senator Derek Kitchen of Salt Lake City, D, believes Utahn’s efforts will benefit in many ways.
“It’s important to understand that this is bringing Utah and the US back to the driver’s seat by restoring clean energy, creating jobs and taking climate action,” said Kitchen. “I think this economic priority puts us on a course for massive economic growth in the future. So that’s a good thing.”
While the previous administration openly questioned the science of climate change, Biden made the issue a priority and recently restored US participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
A fact sheet from the American Jobs Plan Utah summarizes Utah’s infrastructure needs, including repairs to dozens of bridges, thousands of miles of roads, and $ 4 billion worth of water and sewer systems.
Kitchen argued that the upgrades will be needed sooner rather than later.
“Utah’s population is expected to nearly double over the next ten years,” said Kitchen. “That will put enormous pressure on our housing stock, our transport system and of course on critical infrastructures such as water.”
While 45,000 Utahns already have clean energy jobs, Kitchen noted that the number could grow significantly under the president’s program. He believes in a clean energy economy, anyone who loses their job could quickly find a new one.
“These are jobs that allow people to stay on the workforce even as they move from moving coal out of a mine to building a bridge or road or building an affordable housing complex,” said Kitchen.
Ahead of the summit, the government announced that it would publish the details of the so-called “ambitious climate action and commitments to reduce carbon pollution and move to a clean energy economy”.
Summit of heads of state and government on the climate Paris Agreement on Climate Change Utah
This story was originally published by the Public News Service. More information is available at publicnewsservice.org.
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