The Future of the Labor-Climate Alliance

ABSTRACT:President Joe Biden has emphasized the need for climate action since he was on the campaign trail. His platform included policies inspired by the Green New Deal, and one of his first acts in office was to issue an omnibus executive order calling for a “Whole of Government” approach to tackling the climate crisis. Then, in August 2022, he signed the Inflation Reduction Act. Heralded as the most significant piece of U.S. climate legislation to date, the IRA allocates $369 billion to incentivize clean energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicle purchases, and other supply-side measures to build demand for low-carbon technologies and products. Its underlying philosophy is that if renewable energy and low-carbon technology is cheap and plentiful, market dynamics will make fossil fuel production and use prohibitively expensive.