Climate 411

3 ways to include rural communities in emerging climate solutions

Photo of a field of crops

Rural communities across the United States are extraordinarily diverse, all experiencing a wide variety of landscapes, cultural identities and ways of life. But many express common concerns — they are watching their populations deplete as the country urbanizes, their economic systems are becoming more perilous, and there is a feeling of being left behind as the rest of the country moves towards new solutions that are not designed for their reality — including climate solutions. Despite being essential stakeholders in climate solutions, rural communities are often excluded from the conversation around their deployment.

As we continue to transition to cleaner forms of energy and as recent Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act investments begin to roll out, there will be a need for the development and deployment of energy technologies at a scale we haven’t seen before now. To ensure that all communities have the resources and support they need to mitigate the impacts of climate change, it is important for governments and other organizations to include rural communities in their work.

The Rural Vision for Climate Innovation project set out to learn about rural attitudes and perceptions of climate innovation through 30 stakeholder interviews with ‘grasstop’ leaders and regional focus groups. We wanted to understand how rural Americans view climate investments and invite them to tell us how they want these solutions to show up in their communities.

Here are three main takeaways from the project:

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Also posted in Cities and states, Economics, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Innovation, Policy / Comments are closed

Minnesotans are ready for state lawmakers to take bold climate action

Minnesotan Lakeshore

After the November election, Minnesota policymakers are now in the best position than they have ever been to take critical steps to put in place policies necessary to tackle climate change. In doing so, they have the opportunity to create good paying jobs, protect communities from harmful air pollution, and secure a safer future for all Minnesotans.

A recent poll, commissioned by EDF Action and conducted by Global Strategy Group, found broad support among majorities of Minnesotans for ambitious climate policies – including those that limit carbon pollution, encourage more use of clean energy, and reduce pollution from specific sectors such as transportation and agriculture. Majorities of Minnesota voters also want the Governor and state lawmakers to do more to support these and other climate policies.

As Minnesota lawmakers prepare for the upcoming legislative session in January, the results of this poll underscore how popular climate action is among the state’s voters. Here are five key polling results:

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Also posted in Carbon Markets, Cities and states, Innovation, Policy / Comments are closed

How climate change is worsening drought

Spring is in full swing across the U.S. – flowers are blooming, pollen is blowing – and this means that the 2021 heat wave, hurricane, and wildfire seasons are just around the corner.

After the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season produced a record number of named storms and record-breaking wildfires ravaged the Western U.S., vulnerable communities are bracing for more. However, another extreme weather event linked to climate change has been quietly afflicting the U.S. year-round with no signs of letting up and at risk of becoming permanent – widespread drought.

Drought conditions have been ongoing since early summer 2020 – and have persisted, worsened, and expanded dramatically – across vast portions of the continental U.S. Since October 2020, almost all of the High Plains and Western regions and more than half of the South have been experiencing some level of drought. More than 50% of Western drought conditions are categorized as either extreme or exceptional drought. Even more drastically, extreme and exceptional drought have comprised more than 75% of drought conditions across the Four Corners region (Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico) since late autumn.

NOAA predicts that these widespread dry conditions are likely to continue and spread throughout the spring, especially in the Southwest. This poses major threats to the region, including increased risks of wildfires, parched rangelands, stressed irrigation systems, and crop failures.

Just as climate change has worsened many extreme weather events, it has also impacted droughts. The excess heat now trapped in the climate system draws out more moisture from soils, thereby worsening drought conditions. Reduced snowpack volumes, earlier snowmelt, and changing precipitation patterns – also linked to climate change – exacerbate the water stress induced by droughts. And for numerous individual events across the world, scientists have attributed the increased likelihood and severity of droughts to human-driven climate change.

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Also posted in California, Cities and states, Economics, Extreme Weather, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Science / Read 2 Responses

Farmers and environmentalists team up to push Congress to act on climate

By Callie Eideberg

This blog was originally posted on EDF’s Growing Returns.

America’s farmers, ranchers and forest landowners are on the frontlines of the climate change. Planting windows and growing seasons are shifting, and droughts and floods are more likely to occur. At the same time, these working lands hold enormous potential to help slow climate change and increase resilience to its effects. Photo credit: Iowa NRCS.

Agricultural and environmental advocates have joined forces to push Congress to act on climate change. The new Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance developed more than 40 joint policy recommendations for making farms, ranches and forests more climate resilient, harnessing the power of natural climate solutions.

Environmental Defense Fund, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and National Farmers Union co-chair the alliance, and membership has expanded to include FMI-The Food Industry Association, National Alliance of Forest Owners, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture and The Nature Conservancy. Read More »

Also posted in Climate Change Legislation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Policy / Comments are closed

How Brazil can develop its rural economy, increase agricultural production and protect forests

Day one panel “How should the rural economy be in the future?” featuring, from left, Carlos Nobre (IEA-USP), André Guimarães (IPAM), Regina Sambuichi (Ipea), and Juliano Assunção (PUC-RIO). Photo by IPC-IG on Flickr .

The recent fires in the Amazon rainforest have raised the question: is it possible to have a new model of development in the region that reconciles forest protection with economic growth?

The pressing threats of climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation along with a growing global demand for agricultural commodities, pose major challenges and opportunities for rural economies.

A group of Brazilian and international scientists, economists, and government officials joined private sector, civil society and multilateral organization representatives in Brasília to discuss how these challenges could be turned into economic and environmental opportunities for the Brazilian rural sector.

The two day workshop, “Business Opportunities for a Sustainable Rural Economy: The Contribution from Forests and Agriculture,” examined different facets of Brazil’s potential in a low-carbon rural economy. Organized by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in partnership with the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) of the Brazilian Ministry of Economy, and the United Nations Development Program – International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG), participants concluded that Brazil has an unparalleled comparative advantage to foster a buoyant sustainable rural economy that couples economic and agricultural development with environmental protection.

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Also posted in Brazil, Carbon Markets, Forest protection / Read 1 Response

Momentum Builds for Agriculture at COP 24

Plenary at COP 24 in Katowice, Poland. Flickr/ UNclimatechange

Agriculture negotiators arrived in Katowice, Poland eager to get to work on the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) during COP 24. The KJWA is a UNFCCC initiative directing the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) to jointly consider how to tackle agriculture issues in the context of climate change.

Following the creation of the KJWA roadmap during the May 2018 intersessional in Bonn—which laid out an agenda of workshops, topic submissions, and workshop reports every six months between the 2018 intersessional and the end of 2020—negotiators agreed to continue their joint work on addressing issues related to agriculture, beginning with the first in-session workshop during COP 24 in Katowice. Over the course of the first week of the COP, it became clear that the negotiators were determined to keep the momentum going.

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Also posted in Forest protection, Paris Agreement, United Nations / Comments are closed