Americans cannot afford green households
Find free money
15 June 202
What would be included in a complete climate defense by 2030, how much would it cost, and who would pay for what? These questions address the money cost of a complete climate defense. There are no firm answers, but formulating a strategic plan requires preliminary estimates.
Building a 100% renewable energy system and transmission grid to wherever needed is foundational. Its estimated cost is $5.3 trillion. Payers would be government, business, and private parties. For comparison, twenty years of war in the Middle East cost Uncle Sam $6 trillion.
To create a 100% EV vehicle fleet in a decade, the US would have to replace 280 million gasoline-powered autos, trucks, and buses with EVs. To replace those vehicles with EVs at $40,000 each would cost $11 trillion. Payers would include mostly private owners.
Equipping all occupied structures with clean energy appliances would require the US to exchange existing gas and oil powered furnaces and stoves for electric models. Estimating a furnace replacement at $5000 and a stove replacement at $3000, we must replace 132 million furnaces ($660 trillion) and 40 million stoves ($120 trillion) for an aggregated cost of $780 trillion. Payers would be property owners.
These calculations are rough but the list could also be expanded so its numbers are conservative. For instance, what’s the total cost of building enough electric charging stations to enable the all-EV fleet to function conveniently? Or how about the total cost of retrofitting all factories with electric power rather than oil or coal power? If enumerated, these ignored items would increase the bill.
Happily, there is no need to go farther because there is enough information here already to enable some important conclusions. Obviously, the foundational cost of building a 100% renewable energy system and a servant electrical grid ($5 trillion) is just starters. Those costs are dwarfed by the private cost of replacing all the gasoline powered vehicles, gas and oil furnaces, and gas stoves with new electric models. The average household would have to replace two automobiles, a gas furnace and a gas stove in order to operate on 100% clean energy. That’s an upfront bill of approximately $88,000 per home. For comparison, that is $1400 more than the yearly gross income of the average household.
Some cautions are in order. To meet its Paris climate goals by 2030, the United States does not need to convert to 100% electric power. The US has committed to cutting its emissions by 2030 to half of what was emitted in 2005. Therefore, the effective cost of a satisfactory climate defense by 2030 is only half of what was calculated above. Moreover, as we are often reminded, there are long-term savings in replacing old gasoline burners with new electric ones and that savings additionally reduce the long-term cost of a satisfactory electrification. Quite true, we will save the upfront money back in a decade or so. Nonetheless, just to meet the Paris goals by 2030, households are stuck with a balloon payment upfront, and most cannot afford it. Getting down to individual households, our cost estimate per household now drops to $44,000 from $88,000. That is half the average household’s annual income. Understanding that, the Biden administration provided some means-tested incentives for households to install rooftop solar panels and to buy EVs, electric heaters, and electric stoves. Pretending that climate deterioration is a hoax [2], the Trumpists are planning now to take all the subsidies away in order to fund a 13% increase in the military budget, a 400% increase in immigration control, and a giant tax forgiveness for billionaires. [1] Oh, and a military parade on Trump’s birthday.
Conclusion
Climate defenders, average Americans cannot pay these bills out of their own pocketbooks. They need financial help to go green. Americans overwhelmingly want a climate defense, but they need serious help paying for it. This is why free money is so important to climate protection. As Climate Defenders (June 1) pointed out, free money for climate defense can be obtained by reducing military spending and immigration control and reorienting the savings to climate defense. Additionally, the nation’s 272 billionaires can be compelled to pay for a decade of climate adaptation with the money Uncle Sam will save by denying them the GOP tax holiday. This money is “free” because it does not increase taxes, the deficit, or the federal budget. It just reallocates existing funds from less to more urgent uses. Here is the money to enable average Americans to back climate defense with their votes confident that they are not voting themselves bills they cannot pay. Tap that source. Climate defenders and climate defense organizations need openly to advocate reorienting federal budget dollars from less to more urgent priorities. It’s the truth. Have the courage to speak it.
[1] Brad Plumer. “Why Rooftop Solar Could Crash Under the G.O.P. Tax Bill. Federal tax breaks have fueled a boom. The House bill would end that immediately.” New York Times 11 June 2025
[2] Rebecca Dzombak and Hiroko Nabuchi. “U.S. Government to Stop Tracking the Costs of Extreme Weather.” New York Times 8 May 2025