Carper's green evolution
In his early days in Washington, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) voted to allow drilling in the Arctic. He has opposed raising miles-per-gallon standards. And nine years ago, he voted to approve the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Since taking over as the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Carper is singing a different tune. At the end of this Congress, Carper plans to retire. And he's hard at work cementing an environmental legacy, Kelsey Brugger reports. Carper has distanced himself from the oil and chemical industry and hired sharp environmental policy experts as his top aides. He fought the Trump administration’s assault on public health and environmental regulations. And he's fought to keep Biden's 2022 climate law alive. Emboldened youth
Young people turned out to vote in record numbers in the last two election cycles, helping deliver victories for Democrats. But there are already warning signs that 2024 could be different, Scott Waldman reports. Climate change is among the top issues of people 29 and younger who expect to vote — along with the economy and gun control, according to a survey out of Tufts University. Of all young people polled, those who ranked climate policy as their top issue were the most motivated: 72 percent said they were likely to vote. That group heavily leaned Democratic. But plenty of climate-minded voters still need convincing to vote for Biden, researchers say. The Tufts survey found a significant number of young people are worried about climate change and believe political leaders have done nothing to address it, said Sara Suzuki, a senior researcher at Tufts. High-wire act
Solar companies are coming off a banner year, with a record-breaking number of installations and a rising share of U.S. power generation. 2024 could be the year that decides whether solar clinches a more permanent position as the nation's dominant renewable power source. But times are still unstable. Regulatory and financial hurdles, not to mention political change, could shift the trajectory, Jason Plautz reports. Preliminary numbers showed the U.S. added roughly 33,000 megawatts of solar production capacity in 2023, up more than 50 percent from 2022, according to a December report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie.
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