Stacey Abrams, former Georgia House minority leader and gubernatorial candidate, gave a pep talk to attendees at TheWrap’s 2024 Power Women Summit about the need to stand up to demand a carbon-free future with the impending return of Donald Trump to the White House.
“Terrible, horrible things are going to happen, and we are going to be responsible for wrapping our arms around those who do not have the same position and privilege that we do but still need us to be there,” Abrams told Oscar winner Laura Dern in a one-on-one conversation in Beverly Hills. “Our responsibility is not to wallow, but to work. More than hope, determination is our superpower.”
Last year, Abrams became senior counsel for Rewiring America, a nonprofit group that promotes electrification campaigns across the U.S. in an effort to drive down carbon emissions. The group was established in the wake of the approval of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided billions in funding and incentives to expand renewable energy.
“No one is saying you have to get rid of what you have, but you want something new, if you want something nicer, you should be able to afford it, especially if it makes it healthier for you to do what you do every day,” Abrams said. “It doesn’t have to be painful to be good. And that comfort is the piece that is so important, because it lets individuals make choices that don’t feel like sacrifice, and instead, it feels like community.”
Abrams also told the Hollywood producers and executives in attendance that Rewiring America is consulting businesses on how they can de-carbonize in affordable ways. Dern said such consulting work was a big help while shooting the Apple TV+ series “Palm Royale,” which she is an executive producer on.
“It took amazing companies and organizations to guide us to how to become electric on set, to remove our dependency on fossil fuels, even in base camp, to come up with meals,” Dern said. “I have no idea how to transition meals for a crew that would be more thoughtful and waste free.”
While the Inflation Reduction Act has helped spur renewable production, the incoming Trump administration is expected to eliminate wide swaths of environmental regulation and to once again pull out of the Paris Climate Accords, which the U.S. exited during Trump’s first term as president and then rejoined under President Joe Biden.
Unlike his first term, Trump’s push to kill climate action on the federal level will be buoyed by a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that overturned the Chevron Doctrine, a legal precedent established by the 1984 case “Chevron v. National Resource Defense Council,” which gave federal agencies latitude to interpret ambiguous laws when establishing regulations. A Republican-controlled federal legislature is expected to use that decision to push for significant elimination of regulatory power.
Despite what’s to come, Abrams said she’s not giving up, stressing that the 2024 election was “a loss, not a landslide” for Democrats.
“The reason that matters is that losing means you didn’t get it,” she said. “Landslide means you probably can’t get back to it. We lost, but we didn’t lose our power, we didn’t lose our citizenship, we didn’t lose our voice, we didn’t lose our imagination. And we refuse to lose our positioning and our platform.
“I don’t believe in resistance. I believe in insistence.”
Watch the full panel below.
TheWrap’s Power Women Summit is the essential gathering of the most influential women across entertainment and media. The event aims to inspire and empower women across the landscape of their professional careers and personal lives. With the theme, “Aspire,” this year’s PWS provides one day of keynotes, panels, workshops and networking. For more information visit thewrap.com/pws. For all of TheWrap’s Power Women Summit 2024 coverage, click here.
