The annual Climate Leadership Conference comes as the US seeks to strengthen decarbonization funding, most notably through the controversial Inflation Reduction Act – Photo: Climate Registry

The 2023 Climate Leadership Conference, hosted by the Climate Registry, concludes today in Los Angeles.

The annual conference is North America’s leading event dedicated for discussing business, innovation, and policy solutions to the climate crisis. This year, the agenda included discussing pathways to net zero emissions through new technologies and improving partnerships between the public and private sectors.

In recent years, the US has bolstered efforts at decarbonization; as younger Americans are more open to phasing out fossil fuels altogether, and public support for the US to become carbon neutral by 2050 has increased.

Several laws are expected to triple climate change spending over the next decade. This includes the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which entails $98 billion of spending over the next decade on clean energy technology initiatives. Another law, the CHIPS and Science Act, includes $54 billion for climate-related investment for technologies, such as more efficient solar panels. A third law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), includes a $362 billion investment in renewable energy and the environment through tax breaks that would promote the uptake of these technologies. In particular, IRA funding is expected to accelerate solar installations, job creation, and grid resilience