Green Prosperity: How Clean Energy Policies Can Fight Poverty

In June 2009 the Council partnered with Natural Resources Defense Council and Green For All to release the following report:

GREEN PROSPERITY:
How Clean-Energy Policies Can Fight Poverty and Raise Living Standards in the United States

SUMMARY
The United States today faces a formidable generation-long challenge: to transform the economy from being driven primarily by fossil fuel sources of energy, which are the major cause of global climate change, to becoming an economy that can function effectively through renewable energy sources and by achieving high levels of energy efficiency.

The project of building a clean-energy economy will become a powerful engine of expanding employment opportunities throughout the U.S. economy. Accord-ing to a study that PERI recently completed with the Center for American Progress (CAP),1 clean-energy investments at the level of about $150 billion per year—i.e. around one percent of U.S. GDP—can generate about 1.7 million net new jobs throughout the U.S. economy.