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United States
Opinion
Robert Delaney
Robert Delaney

On Balance | Republicans’ ‘Project 2025’ threatens climate change progress and US democracy

  • The right flank of the US Republican Party is pushing ‘Project 2025’, a plan that would transfer unprecedented power to the presidency
  • Its goals include abolishing the Inflation Reduction Act and increasing extraction and usage of fossil fuels, undoing progress in fighting climate change

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A heat advisory sign is shown along US highway 190 during a heat wave in Death Valley National Park in Death Valley, California, on July 16. Record temperatures across the United States have brought the urgency of the climate crisis into focus, but a Republican plan for sweeping government reform threatens to undo progress in the climate change fight and supercharge carbon emissions. Photo: AFP
Robert Delaney
The northern hemisphere’s autumnal equinox arrives this week, and we have never needed it so badly. Most of us north of the equator can finally enjoy the outdoors again after record-breaking heat made every walk to the office or grocery store an exercise in endurance.
Those not fortunate enough to have air conditioning had it much worse. Then there are the least fortunate: those dead or homeless owing to the unprecedented scale of this summer’s forest fires and flooding.

For many, this turn of seasons has traditionally brought about the warmth of a more social kind. There are reunions with friends back from holiday and homebound now that the kids are back in school, sport-watching marathons and connecting with family about who will host Thanksgiving and the year-end holidays.

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It is all backed up with marketing campaigns delivered through every possible channel, showing folks in woolly jumpers sipping hot beverages. We can almost smell the aroma of pumpkin spice lattes with a shot of Kentucky bourbon.

So let’s take some time now to lie down under a tree that is starting to show its autumn foliage because, if you’re paying any attention, you know the climate crisis is only getting worse.
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According to International Energy Agency data, despite the sharp increase in installed renewable energy generation capacity, the world emitted more energy-related carbon dioxide in 2022 than in any other year on record. The news so far this year has been so dominated by weather-related chaos that this sickening statistic barely made it into the headlines.
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