Stop Climate Deception Campaign: Frequently Asked Questions

It is our window of opportunity for mitigating the looming threat of the climate crisis that approaches a “point of no return.” We are already experiencing increasingly more frequent, unpredictable, and intensified weather events, the brunt of which impacts marginalized communities. Prominent climatologist James Hansen notes that without major changes  (i.e. major emissions reductions, major policy shifts) this decade we are unlikely to avert the climate crisis.

Duke Energy is the 3rd largest corporate polluter in the USA, the main electricity provider for NC, and is headquartered in Charlotte, NC. It has the largest planned build-out of climate wrecking fracked gas and failure-prone, risky nuclear energy in the nation. Simultaneously, it suppresses renewable energy solutions. As a major world polluter, shifting Duke Energy’s business model would have a monumental impact on climate change, and changing Duke Energy is North Carolina’s responsibility to its vulnerable communities and the world.

The SCD campaign aims to persuade Gov. Stein to stop repeating Duke Energy’s deceptions noted above. speak out and stop Duke Energy’s expansion of fossil fuels and risky nuclear power and its suppression of renewables. The North Carolina legislature and Utilities Commission are rigged in Duke’s favor; consequently, the SCD campaign urges the state’s top elected official to challenge Duke Energy’s historic and present day climate deception and lead the phase out of fossil fuels in NC.

With national failures on climate change, we need true climate leadership at the state level. Governor Stein is the single largest voice in NC with the authority, visibility and responsibility to ensure the safety, protection and well-being of all North Carolinians. His voice could help the public understand the deception and build pressure on elected officials that would ripple across the country. This is a hyper-urgent situation, and Governor Stein  is an ideal leader for resisting Duke Energy’s deception-based stranglehold on North Carolina’s local and state government officials.

NC WARN has developed a Sharing Solar proposal that makes the case for why local solar plus battery storage (SPS) is the fastest, cheapest, and most equitable way to propel the clean, renewable energy transition in North Carolina. NC WARN recommends starting with requiring SPS on critical public facilities (hospitals, emergency shelters, ERs, etc.) and working towards installing SPS on commercial buildings, in parking lots and on unused urban areas. 

As expressed in the Town of Carrboro’s Lawsuit, it is the significant hidden costs of electricity generation on captive rate and tax payers for climate mitigation and adaptation caused by continued use of fossil fuels for electricity generation. In North Carolina, Duke Energy’s relentless use of fossil fuels perpetuates intensified weather events (e.g … heatwaves, droughts, hurricanes, and etc.) that have devastating financial and public health impacts for all North Carolinians, a “cost” that Duke Energy has never paid for. It is also the hidden costs Duke builds into ratepayers’ bills to pay for new dirty power plants and nuclear facilities.

Climate deception is the active deceit of the public by impairing their ability to acknowledge, understand, or appreciate the severity of climate change and its drivers. It can range from denying the veracity of climate change to broad public deception about greenhouse gas emissions as drivers of climate catastrophes like Hurricane Helene. Duke Energy actively uses these and many other methods of climate deception, and has done so since its leaders learned about the effects of burning fossil fuels in the late 1960s.

There are several particularly potent forms of present day climate deception:

1. The propaganda that North Carolina is on the right track toward slowing climate change
2. The claim by Duke, Gov. Stein, and others that North Carolina’s progress on climate change is based solely on carbon dioxide emissions. They pretend methane emissions don’t matter, even though methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as CO2 so far, and it is 80 times stronger than C02 at trapping the Earth’s heat.
3. Duke Energy claims to be a clean energy leader, even though it has less than 2% renewable energy generation in its corporate portfolio.

In North Carolina, A regulated utility is a company that is granted monopoly status given that it is “regulated” by the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) to serve in the public’s best interest. Consequently, it is granted monopoly status. Even though Article I, Section 34 of North Carolina’s constitution states, “perpetuities and monopolies are contrary to the genius of a free state,” Duke Energy has been granted monopoly status allowing them to be the sole provider of energy across the state.

Although legally required to provide affordable, reliable electricity to North Carolinians, Duke’s priority is profit for its shareholders and millionaire executives. Duke spends vast amounts of money on lobbyists and contributions to politicians across the political spectrum to bend the laws and regulations in its favor, powering a climate-destroying business model. As a state-sanctioned monopoly, it is granted a mark-up of 10% on capital expenditures (huge fossil fuel-burning and nuclear power plants). By exploiting this, Duke Energy always opts to spend billions on  infrastructure, not to provide clean energy or increased efficiency in the electricity system, which would lower power bills and slow climate change while reducing harmful impacts on communities.

Climate disasters are harming millions of North Carolinians. Duke Energy’s expansion of fossil fuels and suppression of renewables is making the crisis even worse and costing tax-payers billions of dollars in damages. Simultaneously, Duke Energy is seeking more than $1 billion in residential rate increases between 2023 and 2026 in the Carolinas, forcing us to pay for our own demise. With the promised 10% return on capital expenditures, every risky, failure-prone nuclear project equates to billions of tax and rate-payer money even if these projects are never completed while squandering our chances at climate protection.