At New York conference, Cooper makes case for NC’s clean energy economy
Elected leaders need to balance the challenges of addressing natural disasters that have been worsened by climate change while continuing to address the issues that the people they’re elected to represent care the most about, Gov. Roy Cooper said Wednesday at the New York Times’ Climate Forward conference.
“We’ve got to take the long-term view to make sure we’re doing everything we can to fight climate change, but the great thing is we can grow our economy at the same time,” Cooper said.
Businesses have announced more than $20 billion in clean energy investments in North Carolina, ranging from a spate of battery projects to a solar panel manufacturer to an electric vehicle charging station developer.
Still an August poll from High Point University’s Survey Research Center found that addressing climate change was the top priority of only 4% of 1,053 North Carolinians polled.
Improving economic conditions was far and away the leading concern, with 27% of those polled choosing it, followed by managing immigration and protecting Social Security and Medicare benefits, both at 11%.
Those results aren’t surprising to Cooper, who said voters are most likely to prioritize issues they believe are impacting their daily lives.
“It is up to leaders — elected leaders — to make sure that even though they aren’t the most popular campaign issues that they continue to make sure that these policy challenges are faced. Because the long term is so much more difficult to tackle than short-term issues,” Cooper told The News & Observer Tuesday. He also noted that climate change is also having short-term effects in the state, namely in the form of severe storms like the unnamed one that dropped about 20 inches of rain in parts of Southeastern North Carolina last week.
Part of the poll’s findings may come down to how it asked the question, Martin Kifer, the Survey Research Center’s director, told The News & Observer.
When asked what their top priority is, Kifer said, voters are likely to choose the economy, immigration or national security. But when polls ask voters if an issue is important, it becomes clear that a larger segment of people care about climate change.
In an April 2024 High Point poll of 1,016 North Carolinians, for example, 43% of those polled said climate change was “very important” to them. That was the 17th-lowest of 20 issues the poll asked about.
“If you can only choose one, it may not be all that high up the list. But if you ask people, ‘What is an important issue to you?’ then it doesn’t run as low in the pack,” Kifer said.
Cooper also argues there is a link between addressing climate change and the economy, at least in North Carolina.
Earlier this year, the Environmental Defense Fund found that $19.2 billion announced in electric vehicle or battery projects in North Carolina since January 2015 were the third-most in the country. That was largely supported by the nearly $14 billion Toyota plans to invest at its Randolph County battery manufacturing plant, a project expected to bring more than 5,000 jobs.
“One of the reasons we’ve been successful in North Carolina on our clean energy efforts is that it has helped to put money in the pockets of North Carolina families and businesses. The jobs that have been created by these clean (energy companies) coming in create bipartisan support in this arena,” Cooper said.
When Cooper visited Edgecombe County last month to announce that Natron Energy would invest almost $1.4 billion to build a sodium-ion battery manufacturing plant at a nearby megasite, he was joined onstage by U.S. Sen. Ted Budd, a Republican, who argued the state’s economic success dates back to when Republicans took control of the General Assembly in 2011.
Other recent announcements include:
- The U.S. Department of Energy selecting Forge Battery for a $100 million grant that, if finalized, would let the company add more than 80 additional jobs at the Morrisville factory where it plans to manufacture lithium-ion batteries that will be used in trucks, motorcycles and by the military.
- Boviet Solar’s plans to invest $294 million in a Greenville solar panel manufacturing facility, creating more than 900 jobs.
- IONNA, an electric vehicle charging station developer supported by manufacturers like BMW, General Motors and Hyundai, selecting Durham as the site of its global headquarters, leading to a planned $10 million investment and more than 200 jobs.
“Those companies can take the place of other manufacturing that we’ve had in the past. Our community colleges are gearing up to provide training in these rural areas and I think that these clean energy companies have decided that they can get a quality workforce here not only from the people there but drawing from some of the other suburban counties,” Cooper said.
Speaking Wednesday, Cooper also stressed that putting investments in states whose electorates tend to vote Republican or who are evenly split could bolster the long-term future of investments from Democrats’ landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“There’s always a see saw in electoral politics that’s partisan. You want to make sure the investments we’re making in clean energy can survive a blue wave or a red wave,” Cooper said.
Still, Cooper told The N&O he would like to see the transition move faster. He specifically mentioned frustration with the pace of Duke Energy’s transition away from fossil fuels to generate the state’s electricity.
‘Put more pressure on the utilities’
When it was passed in 2021, energy legislation set a 2030 target for Duke to slash its carbon emissions 70% from 2025 levels, with the company reaching net zero by 2050.
Since then, Duke has told the N.C. Utilities Commission that it is unrealistic to meet that target while maintaining affordable and reliable electricity, in large part due to rising demand from the state’s new manufacturing projects and data centers.
“The Utilities Commission and outside forces need to put more pressure on the utilities to speed up the process of getting to a 70% reduction by 2030 and carbon zero by 2050,” Cooper said.
The Utilities Commission must approve any path forward for Duke’s electric generating resources, but the utility in late July reached a settlement agreement with Walmart and N.C. Public Staff, the publicly funded ratepayer advocates, on a number of issues. Per that agreement, which has not been approved by the commission, Duke said it would seek information about 0.8 to 1.1 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2034 and 2.2 to 2.4 gigawatts by 2035.
The settlement included a stipulation that all parties, also including the Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association, agree that it is no longer possible to achieve the 70% target by 2030.
“Bipartisan House Bill 951 put North Carolina on a strong path forward to cleaner energy in a manner that protects grid reliability and affordability while meeting the needs of a growing region,” Bill Norton, a Duke spokesman, said in a statement.
Cooper called Duke’s approach to offshore wind “soft” and said it may make it difficult for North Carolina to reap the manufacturing and supply chain benefits of an industry a 2021 report prepared for the state’s Department of Commerce said could lead to $140 billion in investment nationwide by 2035.
“We know the benefits are there, but there is concern that there is not enough interest from Duke Energy right now to enhance the benefits of offshore wind for North Carolina,” Cooper said.
This story was produced with financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and Green South Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. If you would like to help support local journalism, please consider signing up for a digital subscription, which you can do here.
This story was originally published September 25, 2024 at 5:30 AM.