Climate 411

Understanding how communities are vulnerable to climate change is key to improving equity and justice

Hurricane Harvey dropped more than 60 inches of rain on the greater Houston region.

Hurricane Harvey dropped more than 60 inches of rain on the greater Houston region in 2017.

This blog was co-authored by Dr. Grace Tee Lewis, Senior Health Scientist, Climate and Health

Last month, Environmental Defense Fund and Texas A&M University published a new study that found all states in the U.S. are at risk from the effects of climate change, particularly neighborhoods experiencing disproportionate environmental harms and risks, health disparities and infrastructure problems. We published our research paper, Characterizing vulnerabilities to climate change across the United States, in response to a growing push to identify and address these climate injustices and inequities. This movement is exemplified by the Biden Administration’s executive order to ensure environmental and economic justice are key considerations in how the administration governs on the issue of climate change.  

With the Biden Administration’s recent legislation – including the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act (IRA, BIF and CHIPS) – we have a historic opportunity to tackle decades of systemic neglect in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. We can help level the playing field by directing resources to build resilience and adaptability in the right places across our country.

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Also posted in Health / Comments are closed

New federal policies can supercharge Virginia’s energy and climate goals

Mom helping young son charge electric car

Photo Credit: Getty Images

It’s the beginning of a new year and this year – despite some opposition – can be the year Virginia turns the corner to embrace a clean energy economy future.

Virginia has already taken critical steps in its clean energy transition to make communities more resilient and to address climate change. Steps like joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) – a multistate program under which power companies pay for the pollution they create – passing legislation like the Virginia Clean Economy Act to establish a 100% clean energy standard and commit to a zero-carbon-emissions electricity grid by 2050 and having deployed nearly $100 million in RGGI funds for flood risk reduction from Roanoke to the Eastern Shore in less than two years, with more to come.

Major federal legislation recently passed in the form of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will supercharge those efforts with increased funding for infrastructure projects, clean energy initiatives and tax incentives, climate resilience, and other programs that address the climate crisis and create good jobs. In 2021 there were already 92,315 Virginians employed in clean energy jobs. Clean energy jobs outnumber fossil fuel jobs and young people overwhelmingly want to work in industries that are serious about addressing the climate crisis.

Virginia is only beginning to see the funding opportunities flowing from these unprecedented federal investments. Here are three examples highlighting how the BIL and IRA are having an impact:

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Also posted in Energy, News, Policy / Comments are closed

Protecting New Mexico’s climate future

Photo of Shiprock in New Mexico

New Mexico is home to one of the most ecologically diverse landscapes in the United States and a rich tapestry of cultures. New Mexicans love their state and take pride in keeping their land, air and water pristine for future generations. However, climate change poses a serious threat to the Land of Enchantment.

Every year, New Mexicans see and feel more and more severe climate impacts across the state. So far in 2022, New Mexico experienced the worst wildfire in its history, which burned more than 340,000 acres and destroyed more than 900 structures. Painful images of the Rio Grande running dry this summer and the devastation from the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon megafire are reminders that climate change continues to wreak havoc on New Mexicans’ livelihoods, cultures, recreational activities and even access to clean drinking water are all under threat. For these reasons, communities will look to our state policymakers for strong leadership on climate policy in the next legislative session. Action that will bring pollution down to safer levels and protect the state’s people, water, and land for generations to come.

Over the past several years, the state has made significant progress on climate change, including through the Energy Transition Act to reduce pollution from power plants, new nationally leading methane rules to reduce pollution from oil and gas production, and zero-emission vehicle standards to increase EV sales in the state and reduce pollution from transportation. While these have been milestone policies, additional policies are still critically needed to achieve science-based pollution reduction targets that will create a safer and more prosperous New Mexico. These additional policies are also necessary to reduce pollution in communities that have been most harmed by air pollution, including in tribal communities, as well as communities of color and people living below the poverty line.

EDF and our partners are fighting for effective and equitable climate solutions in the Land of Enchantment. In the upcoming legislative session, the state’s leaders have an opportunity to combine science-based goals to reduce climate pollution, accelerate a just transition to a healthier, more diversified and resilient economy, and ensure state agencies have the tools and resources necessary to assist communities and hold polluters accountable on the way to net-zero climate pollution by 2050. It’s an essential step forward and will make New Mexico a national leader in the fight against climate change.

Make a plan to vote this November, and sign up to stay connected on opportunities to support climate action in New Mexico here.

Also posted in Cities and states / Comments are closed

The ambition-raising opportunity of reducing methane emissions

This blog was authored by Alice Alpert, Senior Climate Scientist at EDF.

Evening silhouette of oilfield pipeline. Source: Getty Images

Meaningful methane emission reductions are not only possible—such efforts can potentially have a massive impact on warming.

Readily available methods to reduce methane can deliver a whopping 0.25°C of avoided temperature rise by 2050. This year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that reductions of methane emissions would also lower peak warming and reduce the likelihood of overshooting the warming levels described in the Paris Agreement. In pathways limiting warming to 1.5°C, methane is reduced by around 33% in 2030 and 50% in 2050. But not all countries define methane targets or even include methane in their Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs).

The Global Stocktake process, also called the Paris Agreement’s ambition “ratchet,” allows countries to assess collective progress toward the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals on mitigation, adaptation, and finance. A successful stocktake will help countries implement their existing climate commitments and provide the impetus and information necessary for them to raise the ambition of their next NDCs. EDF is collaborating on an extensive project with C2ES to help shape the Global Stocktake process by highlighting opportunities to scale up climate ambition.

As work in the Global Stocktake continues toward its conclusion at next year’s COP28, it’s important for all NDCs to include methane-specific targets, and policies and strategies to achieve those targets. Read More »

Also posted in Energy, International, Policy, Science, United Nations / Comments are closed

As Washington state sets the rules for its ambitious climate program, regulators shouldn’t overlook this policy tool

This post was co-authored by Natalie Hurd, Western states climate policy intern at EDF.

Landscape of Washington state

Photo Credit: George Dodd for Getty Images

Washington state is on the cusp of finalizing the rules to launch its ambitious new climate policy. This comes at an important moment of opportunity for states to lean into their climate commitments and increase their ambition. The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act will drive an unprecedented level of investment in fighting climate change and building a clean energy future, making it even easier for states like Washington to meet their climate goals. By enacting ambitious cap-and-invest legislation last year, Washington has taken an important step forward — but now it’s up to regulators to deliver the strongest possible cap-and-invest program.

The Climate Commitment Act (CCA) pairs carbon emission reductions with new tools to tackle local air quality disparities — all in the same policy framework. One of the valuable tools included in the cap-and-invest legislation is an emissions containment reserve (ECR) — a mechanism that guards against long-term uncertainty by ensuring that the program will be made more ambitious if prices for the program become lower than expected. Right now, Washington’s Department of Ecology is making decisions about the details of how to implement the program, including whether or not to include a functional ECR, and EDF has made it clear that Washington should include a well-designed, effective ECR in the state’s cap-and-invest program. Regulators once again have the opportunity to lead the way on the West Coast by including a functioning ECR in Washington’s program design.

What is an emissions containment reserve?

An ECR is a design feature for cap-and-invest programs that was first implemented by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state climate program on the East Coast. The primary role of an ECR is to ensure that, when demand for emissions allowances decreases, the overall supply of allowances is reduced. By reducing the supply, the ECR reduces the overall amount of climate pollution allowed under the program. In other words, allowances are reserved from the market and unable to be purchased, to make sure that the overall allowance budget is adjusted so that emissions are further contained. The amount of allowances that can be removed from the supply and placed in the ECR is relatively small ー for example, in RGGI, the size of the ECR is up to 10% of the allowance budget of participating states.

A figure describing how an ECR functions

Figure 1: Overview of an ECR (Adapted from Resources for the Future)

An ECR is activated when the allowance price hits a “trigger price”, which is a set price that would reflect lower-than-expected demand for allowances. In an auction, if demand for allowances is relatively low, the price of allowances at auction will decrease. If the price of allowances decreases enough to reach the ECR’s trigger price, then a predetermined number of allowances will be removed from the overall allowance supply available at the auction. By reducing the supply of allowances when the trigger price is reached, an ECR translates lower demand and lower prices into greater climate ambition.

One reason why demand for emissions allowances and allowance prices might drop, thus requiring the intervention of an ECR, is if regulated entities are able to cut emissions more quickly than expected.. For example, if a policy like a Clean Fuels Standard reduced emissions more swiftly than anticipated, then the entities impacted by that policy would have lower emissions and therefore require fewer emissions allowances than expected. An ECR helps create a supply for emissions allowances that is responsive to how demand for emissions allowances changes over time.

What does Washington’s program currently do?

Despite the added stability and climate ambition that an ECR would bring to Washington’s cap-and-invest program, as imagined in the Climate Commitment Act, the current proposed design for Washington’s program is missing a critical ingredient: an ECR trigger price. Without a trigger price, there is no way for the ECR to be activated, meaning that Washington’s proposed program does not include a functional ECR.

Why should Washington include a functional ECR in their program?

Economic modeling has shown that including an ECR in an emissions market improves performance by making the market more efficient and securing additional emissions reductions. On top of these benefits, an ECR would help ensure that a program like Washington’s will keep running smoothly long-term. For one, the inclusion of a functional ECR can reduce price volatility in the long run, which decreases uncertainty for market participants. Stable market expectations are important to the durability of the program. Cap-and-invest in the state is more likely to be successful going forward if market participants can better anticipate market behavior year-to-year and plan accordingly. In addition, an ECR provides a predictable, rule-based approach for supply adjustments, helping to avoid the need for other less predictable adjustments to supply by the Department of Ecology to keep Washington on track to meet its climate goals.

Finally, an ECR can increase the environmental ambition of the program by reducing the overall supply of allowances if demand for allowances falls, thereby reducing the total climate pollution that can be emitted by regulated entities. This is critical because Washington’s cap-and-invest program serves as a backstop, working alongside a suite of programs and investments that will help drive emissions reductions. As these programs and investments interact, it’s essential that the cap-and-invest program’s overall limit on emissions remains ambitious enough to incentivize continued efforts to address climate change, and an ECR can help do this by reducing the supply of allowances when demand for allowances is low.

Implications for linking with other carbon markets

In addition to enhanced environmental integrity and economic stability, a functional ECR with a trigger price may be an important factor in potential future program linkage between Washington and other carbon markets. Program linkage — or connecting carbon pricing systems across borders — can facilitate quicker reductions in emissions regionally. By establishing an ECR, Washington would set an important precedent for other states, as well as provide a strong example of climate policy. The ECR program design has already spread from its initial inception in RGGI, and Washington now has an opportunity to be a leader for states on the West Coast.

Market-based mechanisms to reduce climate emissions are not the only policies that need to be implemented to address the climate crisis, but they are a critical part of a suite of climate solutions, including sectoral strategies to deliver near-term reductions in climate pollution. In addition to maintaining the strength of its cap-and-invest system, it’s crucial that policymakers in Washington and elsewhere work meaningfully with communities to ensure that these policies are designed and rolled out in an equitable and just way, explicitly addressing the disproportionate burden of pollution that is primarily borne by low-income communities and communities of color. While cap-and-invest programs are only part of the solution, making them as strong and as stable as possible — such as with the implementation of an effective ECR with a trigger price — will help facilitate more ambitious and broad climate action for decades to come.

During the comment period for Ecology’s latest CCA rulemaking, EDF made it clear that Ecology should include a functional ECR with a trigger price in the final rules. Including a trigger price would help the program’s ECR function properly while driving greater reductions in climate pollution when prices are low. By building a strong ECR into its cap-and-invest program, Washington can continue to lead the way with effective, ambitious climate action that’s a model for other carbon markets.

Also posted in Carbon Markets, Cities and states, Economics, Energy, News / Comments are closed

Pass major climate investments to keep our commitment to environmental justice

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Passing major climate investments are a long-overdue step to address environmental injustice throughout the United States. They will reduce the pollution that causes climate change and impacts public health, create high-quality jobs, and make long overdue investments in communities overburdened by pollution. The climate provisions passed in the House version of Build Back Better stand to be the most significant environmental justice investment ever passed by Congress.

More clean trucks and buses: Because of their proximity to trucking routes and ports, low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to dangerous smog- and soot-forming pollutants – causing a slew of health problems, including heart and lung disease. Build Back Better invests billions to reduce this harmful pollution and support workforce development in the hardest hit areas.

Replace toxic lead pipes: More than nine million homes in 11,000 communities across the U.S. still get their water through a lead pipe, posing serious health risks. Investments from Build Back Better complement those from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act by giving EPA the resources it needs to create jobs and prioritize lead pipe replacement to protect children in low-wealth families and communities of color. 

Jobs protecting Americans from climate change: The Civilian Climate Corps would train a new, diverse workforce of 300,000 dedicated to combating the climate crisis and create a pathway to good-paying jobs. This investment is especially important for young people, people of color, and those with a high school diploma or less, who face barriers to accessing high-quality jobs.

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