Climate 411

How our clean energy laws can support a fair transition for workers and communities

By Derek Walker / Published: May 1, 2023

photo of a coal plant

Our country is going to rapidly deploy and manufacture clean energy technologies to a scale never seen before, thanks in large part to historic laws passed by the Biden-Harris administration and Congress.

This shift is already unleashing new jobs and economic opportunities around the country, but many communities reliant on fossil fuel production – coal, oil and gas – are rightfully concerned about how it will affect their lives and their futures.

Last month, the Biden-Harris administration announced a sweeping set of new investments under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act aimed at revitalizing communities dependent on coal and fossil fuels. It’s a recognition that the clean energy transition cannot succeed unless it’s fair and equitable.

For over 150 years, coal and other fossil fuel workers have worked to power our economy. As natural gas and clean energy outcompeted coal in the last decade, hundreds of coal plants and mines across the country have shuttered, while the communities that depended on them have often been left behind – facing job loss, with funding for schools and roads running dry, and a legacy of local pollution to reckon with.

Recognizing the challenges facing fossil fuel communities in transition, the administration responded with a “whole-of-government” approach, bringing 12 different agencies together through the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization. In the past two years, the group has driven $14 billion in targeted investment to these communities.

The latest set of actions takes that support to new levels, not just by dollar amount, but in how it deploys a suite of different policies to help make communities whole – from job and benefits programs for individual workers to large-scale economic development that can sustain communities. While more support will be needed, this kind of comprehensive approach has been recommended by many groups, including joint research from EDF and Resources for the Future, as well as by the BlueGreen Alliance and Just Transition Fund.

Here’s a quick look at how some of these new investments take aim at critical challenges facing energy communities, and what needs to happen next:

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Also posted in Cars and Pollution, Cities and states, Economics, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Jobs, News, Policy / Comments are closed

The climate benefits of informed forestry practices

By Guest Author / Published: April 20, 2023

Pine plantation forest in Australia. iStock

This post was authored by Cyril Melikov, Senior Research Analyst of Natural Climate Solutions at EDF. 

Forests planted for commercial purposes can help slow down climate change. How? With improved forestry management that uses forestry practices that increase the amount of carbon stored in commercial forests.
The idea is that foresters and land managers can put forestry practices in place that will raise the carbon levels in the plantation forests they manage, thus helping slow climate change.

For example, foresters could harvest trees at an older age than the age at which they would normally be harvested (known as extending the rotation length). Or they could plant several trees species in the same tree plantation (known as mixed planting) as opposed to planting only one tree species. Or they could add nutrients to the soil using inorganic or organic nutrient sources (known as fertilization).

All these practices could add carbon to plantation forests. Their study has gained traction over the past decade as improved forest management could represent a cost-effective and rapidly deployable natural climate solution, or NCS. It’s a promising avenue for climate change mitigation.

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Also posted in International, Science / Comments are closed

3 ways to include rural communities in emerging climate solutions

By Akin Olumoroti / Published: April 3, 2023

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 Agriculture, Cities and states, Economics, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Policy / Comments are closed

DOE announced its largest-ever investment in decarbonizing industry. Here’s how it addresses key challenges.

By Sonali Deshpande / Published: March 28, 2023
Overview of a polluting factory

Photo Credit: Marcin Jozwiak for Pexels

This blog was co-authored by Natasha Vidangos, Senior Director, Climate Innovation and Technology.

Decarbonizing industry is a critical step to stabilize our climate. The sector can be tough to get a handle on — it’s on track to become the largest-emitting sector within the next couple of decades, and it involves the production of a wide variety of goods, from cement, steel, and chemicals to food and beverages. Historically, heavy industry is also a significant source of local pollution, often leading to direct harm to nearby communities, which tend to be communities of color. This complex yet critical piece of our economy needs a transformation — one that leverages cleaner and more efficient energy and processes while establishing mechanisms to ensure better outcomes on the ground. Identifying, developing and deploying transformative solutions is not an easy task: It requires innovative ideas, ambitious plans and investments, and coordination across a diverse set of stakeholders. Federal support is crucial for testing and validating these new technologies in a real-world setting, reducing the barriers to safe and effective adoption.

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Also posted in Policy, Science / Comments are closed

New Inflation Reduction Act Tracker Launched by the Sabin Center and EDF

By EDF Blogs / Published: March 8, 2023

This piece was co-authored by EDF Clean Air Legal Fellow Richard Yates and Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Fellow Eleonor Dyan Garcia. It is also posted on the Sabin Center’s website.

The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Environmental Defense Fund have just launched IRAtracker.org. This free online resource includes a searchable database that catalogues all of the climate change-related provisions in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), as well as a tracker that records actions taken by federal agencies to implement those provisions.

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Also posted in News, Partners for Change, Policy / Authors: / Comments are closed

Making the most of our climate investments: 4 lessons learned from new research

By Chelcie Henry-Robertson / Published: January 31, 2023

Photo Credit: Canva

This blog was co-authored by Morgan Rote, Director, U.S. Climate.

In the last year, the U.S. secured historic investments from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and CHIPs and Science Act that position our country to drive transformational progress on emissions, energy security and jobs in clean energy and manufacturing. Getting those laws through Congress to President Biden’s desk was no easy feat — they’ve been decades in the making — and the next chapter may be just as challenging: implementing those clean energy and innovation investments swiftly and fairly across the nation.

To ensure these laws make the impact we need this decade, federal agencies like the Department of Energy need to design, build and evaluate programs that maximize this funding. Two reports commissioned by EDF offer valuable insights and recommendations on how to best design and evaluate clean energy and innovation programs.

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Also posted in Cities and states, Energy, Policy / Read 1 Response