Climate 411

Detroit Showcases How Clean Energy and Community Benefits Go Hand-in-Hand

By Tonya Calhoun / Published: May 27, 2025

Written Q&A with Tepfirah Rushdan, Director of the Detroit Office of Sustainability, on the city’s solar neighborhoods project.

A white man in a gray suit pointing out details on a posterboard. In the background are four more individuals.

Mayor Mike Duggan and other city officials share information about the selected solar neighborhoods with community members during a January 2025 press conference.

Detroit is modeling how to co-create clean energy solutions with communities by combining urban revitalization efforts with sustainability goals. The Motor City’s climate goals are ambitious: by 2034, Detroit aims to power 100% of its municipal buildings with clean energy and source 50% of its electricity from clean sources in the next three years. Along the way, the city is advancing a range of co-benefits, including improved public health, more energy efficiency and affordability, and quality jobs and opportunities.

As part of this strategy, Detroit‘s Office of Sustainability and Department of Neighborhoods are teaming up to implement the city’s Neighborhood Solar Initiative, which will build solar arrays on vacant land surrounded by communities that benefit from the repurposed space. Five neighborhoods were selected based on resident interest, and a total of 167 acres of land are being fitted with solar fields, raised gardening beds and other landscaping enhancements. Spearheaded by Mayor Mike Duggan and informed by input from thousands of Detroiters, the effort is one of the first steps to achieving the city’s larger climate goals. By providing clean energy and engaging residents and local nonprofits, Solar Neighborhoods will make new use of vacant areas and offer money-saving energy efficiency upgrades for surrounding homes.

A woman with light brown skin and a white shirt smiling at the camera.

Tepfirah Rushdan, Director of the Office of Sustainability since 2024.

I spoke with Tepfirah Rushdan, Detroit’s Director of Sustainability, to learn more about the city’s Solar Neighborhoods, how communities have been involved during every step of the process and her advice for other local leaders looking to build more sustainable futures for their cities. Read More »

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Jobs in Jeopardy: Undermining federal support for electric vehicles threatens U.S. employment

By Ellen Robo / Published: March 20, 2025

The U.S. auto industry has just started finding its footing with electric vehicles (EVs). Jobs are now booming across the Midwest and the new “battery belt” in the South.

But new evidence shows that the rollback of federal tax and regulatory policies poses critical risks to this progress.

A recent report commissioned by Environmental Defense Fund found that EV manufacturing investments reached almost $200 billion over the last ten years. 65% of that came in the last two and a half years – since Congress passed laws that spurred that growth, including the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The report also found that manufacturers have announced 195,000 EV-related jobs in the U.S., and that EV and battery manufacturing could generate up to 826,000 additional jobs in the broader economy.

These investments are being made in communities across the country. Many are the largest investments the states or counties have ever seen. But these investments and jobs are now in peril.

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Also posted in Cars and Pollution, Cities and states, Economics, Green Jobs, News, Policy / Authors: / Comments are closed

How Long Beach is Leading the Charge Toward a Clean Energy Future

By Nicholas Glover / Published: August 14, 2024

Written Q&A with Mayor Rex Richardson on Climate and Economic Progress in Long Beach, California

City of Long Beach Landscape

Long Beach, California, is showing communities around the country why embracing the clean energy economy is a winning strategy.

Home to one of the busiest port complexes in North America, with a long reliance on revenue from oil and gas, Long Beach is now charting a new path that marries climate progress and economic progress. Under Mayor Rex Richardson’s leadership, the city is making bold moves to electrify its port and cut harmful pollution, land coveted EV manufacturing jobs, and leverage billions in federal investment from historic climate laws – all while lifting up frontline and disadvantaged communities hit hardest by pollution and climate impacts.

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson

EDF has worked with Long Beach to host a roundtable of climate stakeholders to support their Climate Action Plan and continues to collaborate with the city through its partnership with the African American Mayor’s Association.  To get deeper insights on the city’s transformation, I asked Mayor Rex Richardson about Long Beach’s climate and economic plans, some of the exciting projects that are underway now and what other mayors can learn from his approach. 

Let’s start with some big recent news: Ford has officially chosen Long Beach as its new home to develop its next generation of small, affordable EVs. What kinds of jobs and business opportunities will this new manufacturing facility bring to Long Beach? What has the response from the community been? 

RR: In the City of Long Beach, we are laying the foundation for the Long Beach of the future — a global, sustainability-centered hub that attracts emerging companies, industries, and technologies in clean and renewable energy. Our recent announcement that Ford Motor Company has chosen Long Beach as the home for its new Advanced Electric Vehicle Development Center is evidence of our unwavering commitment to move full-speed ahead towards a zero-emission future. 

Ford plans to open their research-and-development campus in Douglas Park, adjacent to Long Beach Airport, in early 2025. This campus will include two buildings and will host around 450 employees focused on designing Ford’s next generation of low-cost, electric vehicles.  

Ford at Grow Long Beach - 26 June 2024 (1)

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson with Doug Field, Ford’s Chief Officer of EVs and Digital Systems, and Alan Clarke, Ford’s executive director of Advanced EV Development, at the city’s Grow Long Beach 2024 event announcing the automaker’s new EV development center. Photo courtesy of Long Beach, California.

As a part of our Grow Long Beach Initiative, and our city’s ongoing efforts to transition away from oil production revenues as a core funding source for city services, we are placing a focus on growing our economy by drawing thousands of new advanced manufacturing and engineering jobs that will support local Long Beach residents with competitive wages, and will allow graduates from our local schools and universities to buy a home and set roots in our community. 

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Also posted in Cities and states, Energy, Innovation / Authors: / Comments are closed

Charting the path to equity: unveiling new Just Transition and Safeguards Framework

By Mandy Rambharos / Published: April 9, 2024

Reskilling and training workers for a clean energy future. Photo: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

By Mandy Rambharos, Vice President, Global Climate Cooperation  

As the world moves towards greener, low-carbon futures, it’s imperative that no one is left behind – including those working in fossil fuel industries and the communities they support. 

A new report from Environmental Defense Fund, ‘Just Transition and Safeguards Framework’ offers a roadmap for countries and energy companies alike to successfully navigate the complexities of transitioning to clean energy while ensuring fairness and equity at every step of the way. 

Guidance from this framework outlines how to empower local stakeholders – from frontline communities to Indigenous Peoples – ensuring everyone has a seat at the table and a fair share in the benefits of this monumental shift. 

The concept of a ‘just transition’ isn’t new by any means. It was first developed by North American trade unions and environmental justice advocates and has since become a global call to action. As this big idea – which is simultaneously inspiring, ambiguous, and vast in scope – spreads across the world, it must adapt to local challenges, economic realities, and social norms.  

While a just transition will (and should) look different from West Virginia to South Africa, EDF’s framework aims to help decision-makers understand the principles that should be core to every just transition plan – removing the ambiguity and providing clear waypoints toward true climate justice.  

Read More »

Also posted in Energy, Just Transition / Comments are closed

Cut carbon, raise cash: How New York’s cap-and-invest program could invest billions in communities

By Kate Courtin / Published: January 25, 2024

In leading climate states, you’ll find trailblazing projects that are benefiting people’s lives and cutting costly pollution right now.

In Washington, young people ride the ferry across Puget sound and buses around the state for free. In California, low-income residents get money-saving home energy efficiency upgrades at no cost. And in New York, businesses and apartments earn major rebates to install EV charging stations — with 4,000 stations installed so far.

These are just a few projects supported by funding from cap-and-invest programs. While limiting and driving down harmful climate pollution, these programs are in turn raising revenue that is re-invested in communities.

As New York develops the rules for its statewide cap-and-invest program — the third such program in the nation — a high-ambition program would give New Yorkers an exciting opportunity to shape and direct billions of potential investments each year for communities. From improving public transportation access to lowering energy bills, the possibilities are endless.

Here are just a few ways that other statewide programs, like California and Washington, are putting their revenues to work, and how New York’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is already funding projects around the state — investments that could be significantly expanded and scaled up with a strong statewide cap-and-invest program.

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Also posted in California, Carbon Markets, Cities and states, Economics, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Policy / Comments are closed

IRA across the USA: 5 communities winning clean energy manufacturing jobs

By Derek Walker / Published: August 16, 2023

Two clean manufacturing workers training on site.

A year since the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law, this historic climate legislation has already led to $278 billion in private investment that will support more than 170,000 clean energy jobs across the country.

And the work is just getting started.

Manufacturing incentives in the law, which encourage companies to build the clean energy supply chain here in the U.S., are creating manufacturing jobs and new economic opportunities for communities. According to the BlueGreen Alliance, the IRA will spur an estimated 900,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs over the next decade. The law also pairs incentives with labor standards that protect and prepare workers by requiring fair wages and apprenticeships.

Get to know some of the towns and communities around the country that are winning these major manufacturing investments and getting ready to build the clean energy technologies that will power our future.

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