Meech Carter with the NC League of Conservation Voters discusses clean energy and climate change

News & Views

Meech Carter (Photo: NCLCV)

As Tropical Storm Debby reminded North Carolinians in powerful and sobering fashion once again earlier this month, climate change continues to progress and grow more serious. While no one can say that any particular storm is a byproduct of climate change, scientists do say loudly and without equivocation that climate change is making hurricanes and other tropical systems (not to mention other problematic climate phenomena like thunderstorm outbreaks, droughts, and even winter snowstorms) more frequent and more intense.

Fortunately, as NC Newsline was reminded in a recent extended conversation with Meech Carter, the Clean Energy Campaigns Director for the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, while the situation is very real and urgent, there are many things that we can and should be doing to tackle the problem, and thanks to some critical investments flowing from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, North Carolina is taking some important initial steps.

In Part One of our conversation with Carter, we talked about the undeniable reality of climate change and how recent investments that have flowed from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act are making a welcome difference in North Carolina.

In Part Two of our conversation, we turned our attention to the battle to reduce carbon pollution from fossil fuels and how, despite having some promising goals, North Carolina’s giant monopoly energy provider, Duke Energy, has a built-in incentive to embrace costly solutions and has, unfortunately, been seeking to delay necessary action to speed the shift to renewable energy.