Climate 411

California Accelerates Toward Zero-Emission Vehicle Standards That Will Save Lives, Save Money, Create Jobs

By Alice Henderson / Published: May 11, 2021

California just moved further down the road toward cleaner cars and vital air pollution reductions.

The state’s Air Resources Board hosted a public workshop on the development of its Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) program last week, where it announced that it intends to propose multipollutant standards that will ensure all new cars sold in California are zero-emitting vehicles by 2035.

At the workshop, the Air Resources Board for the first time laid out a proposed trajectory for the ACC II program, charting a course for ensuring 60% of new vehicles sold in 2030 are zero-emitting and 100% of new vehicles sold by 2035 are zero-emitting.

Slide from Air Resources Board workshop presentation, available here

The ACC II program will build from California’s long history of advancing vehicle pollution reductions under Clean Air Act authority. If adopted, the draft standards described at the workshop will reduce health-harming pollution and climate emissions from new passenger vehicles beyond the 2025 model year and increase the number of zero-emission vehicles for sale. They will also reduce climate pollution, deliver jobs, save Californians’ money, and – most important – save lives.

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

Driving the electric vehicle transition: auto companies and states step up to lead

By Taylor Bacon / Published: April 29, 2021

If you watched any major televised sporting events this year, from the NCAA Final Four to the Super Bowl, you saw ad after ad showcasing American auto companies’ new electric cars. It’s proof that electric vehicles (EVs) are ready for a mainstream market – you don’t pay Will Ferrell and LeBron James to promote your car just to niche buyers.

Momentum is clearly building. Companies are prepared to capitalize on the economic benefits of EVs, for both consumers and autoworkers, as well as the climate and health benefits that all Americans will see.

In the last three months, some of the largest automakers in the U.S. and the world have committed to dramatically expanding their EV lineup. They have announced plans to invest billions of dollars in EV development, and plans to transition to an all-electric future by 2035 or earlier.

The Biden administration made a commitment last week to reduce U.S. climate pollution by at least 50 percent by 2030 – a commitment that was supported by major automakers and that will require significant emission reductions from the transportation sector.

States are also playing a leading role in driving progress. Last week, a bipartisan group of 12 governors detailed the important role that states have played in deploying zero-emitting vehicles and urged the Biden administration to move forward with ambitious standards that would eliminate pollution from all motor vehicles. And next week, the California Air Resources Board will hold a workshop related to its development of Advanced Clean Car II standards – standards that are expected to help the state ensure all new vehicles sold in California are zero-emitting by 2035.

The transportation sector is responsible for over a quarter of U.S. climate pollution – more than any other sector. The transportation sector also emits a slew of health-harming pollutants, including oxides of nitrogen and particulate pollution. The transportation sector is key to meaningful climate action.

To achieve meaningful reductions in transportation pollution, it will be key for the administration follow automakers’ commitments and state leadership with bold, decisive air pollution standards that put the U.S. on a path to ensure all new vehicles are zero-emitting no later than 2035 for passenger cars and trucks, and no later than 2040 for freight trucks and buses.

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Also posted in Cars and Pollution, Economics, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Policy / Comments are closed

Offshore wind benefits are within North Carolina’s reach if we act with urgency

By Guest Author / Published: April 16, 2021

This post was authored by Michelle Allen, Project Manager for the North Carolina Political Affairs team.

Offshore wind is taking off in the U.S., and the opportunity to be a key player is within North Carolina’s reach. A recent report commissioned by the NC Department of Commerce demonstrates North Carolina’s unique position to serve the industry’s needs and reap the economic benefits that new manufacturing and other necessary infrastructure will bring. Properly sited offshore wind is easy to get behind. It is reliable, pollution-free power from an established technology that’s already transformed energy economies in Europe and across the globe. The environmental benefits are significant, too. As a lifelong North Carolinian, I’ve seen first hand the impacts of climate change already taking its toll from the mountains to the coast. To make sure we’re doing our part to combat climate change, North Carolina leaders need to swiftly replace polluting power sources with clean energy. With strong winds blowing day and night off the North Carolina coast, adding offshore wind to the state’s generation mix would boost the resilience of our power system, create jobs and help make real progress toward North Carolina’s climate goals.

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

These key policies in Biden’s infrastructure plan can deliver big wins on jobs and climate

By Derek Walker / Published: April 1, 2021

This blog was co-authored with Danielle Arostegui, Senior Analyst, U.S. Climate.

This week, President Biden unveiled a far-reaching infrastructure package to build back the economy in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, while protecting existing and future generations from the most severe consequences of climate change and addressing historic inequities in access to clean air and water.

This is the kind of strong leadership we need on the economy and on climate.

The American Jobs Plan is packed full of promising investments that can generate millions of new, good-paying union jobs, revitalize our nation’s aging infrastructure, lessen economic and environmental inequalities and drive progress on our urgent climate goals. In fact, the plan declares “every dollar spent on rebuilding our infrastructure during the Biden administration will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand the impacts of the climate crisis.”

While Biden’s plan has no shortage of important policies with massive potential to lift up communities from coast to coast—including policies that deliver clean drinking water, quality housing, broadband internet, and more—the proposals aimed at transforming America’s power and transportation sectors are particularly critical for their ability to simultaneously combat climate change while creating a stronger, more equitable clean economy.

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Also posted in Green Jobs, Greenhouse Gas Emissions / Comments are closed

Creating opportunity for fossil fuel workers and communities: Lessons for a fair energy transition

By Derek Walker / Published: March 25, 2021

In this culminating report, EDF and Resources for the Future condense lessons across four previous reports that can inform federal policy for supporting U.S. fossil fuel workers and communities in the shift to a clean economy. Wesley Look, Daniel Raimi, Molly Robertson, and Dan Propp of RFF and Jake Higdon of EDF contributed to the report described in this blog post.

The White House is making much-needed moves to take on the climate crisis and shift our economy toward a cleaner future. The majority of Americans are eager for this change and the clean energy and manufacturing jobs that go with it, but there are important questions about how to help fossil fuel workers and communities through this transition.

Many coal communities around the country have been on the frontlines of the energy transition, watching once bustling Main Streets grow quiet as people and businesses leave town along with the coal industry. As renewable energy and natural gas costs have fallen and outcompeted coal over the last decade, workers and communities dependent on coal have been left with few job prospects to support their families and significantly less revenue to keep towns running. The pandemic brought these issues to the fore not only for coal communities, but for oil and gas employment, which fell by more than 100,000 jobs last year.

To deliver on its campaign promise to support workers who have powered America for decades, the Biden-Harris administration must seize this moment to lift up and transform the local and regional economies across the U.S. that have long relied on fossil fuel production. The administration’s new interagency working group to facilitate investment in power plant and coal communities is a big step in the right direction, but much more policy support will be needed.

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Also posted in Energy / Comments are closed

Federal labor policies are critical for ensuring a fair energy transition

By Jake Higdon / Published: March 16, 2021

This fourth report in a joint research series by Environmental Defense Fund and Resources for the Future examines U.S. federal labor programs and policies that can support fossil fuel workers through the energy transition. Wesley Look, Molly Robertson, and Dan Propp of RFF and Jake Higdon of EDF contributed to the report described in this blog post.

At the core of the energy transition challenge is helping impacted workers find and secure new, family-sustaining job opportunities. Colorado’s efforts to support coal workers in transition provides a key example of the kind of labor policies needed — but are all too often absent. When Colorado passed a landmark climate bill in 2019, which requires the state to cut statewide emissions in half by 2030 and 90% by 2050, it also established the nation’s first Office of Just Transition to support the more than 2,000 workers in coal mines and coal-fired power plants and the communities that rely on them.

Xcel Energy, the largest operator of coal-fired electricity generation in Colorado and a company with its own reduction targets, has contributed to the Office’s early plans. One Xcel power plant, the Hayden Generating Station, will close ahead of schedule, and the company is collaborating with an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) local union to provide retraining or retirement for the full workforce at the facility. While there is much more to do to fulfill the promise of the Office of Just Transition, this is an encouraging sign, even as many advocates for energy transition continue to push the utility and the state to move faster.

Unfortunately, across the U.S., workforce development efforts like those at the Hayden Generating Station are more the exception than the rule.

Today, the overwhelming majority of U.S. power plant and mine closures occur with very little proactive planning or training to ensure workers can find new, high-quality, local jobs. It doesn’t have to be that way. As the energy transition accelerates, driven by low-cost clean energy and an urgent need to tackle the climate crisis, federal policy can help fossil fuel workers access workforce development services and can ensure strong labor protections. These policies can guarantee a stronger baseline of support for workers, while complementing locally-tailored solutions that are community-led like those underway in Colorado.

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Posted in Jobs / Comments are closed