Green Jobs Report

This report considers how a Just Transition framework can serve to shape conversation and next steps in addressing climate change. Rooted in an ethos of parity and collaboration across occupations, race, socio-economic status and sectors, its foundational premise is that a healthy economy and a clean environment can and should coexist, and the individuals and communities that have been most impacted by the legacies of environmental harm and would be most affected by shifts in the energy industry should be the first to access and experience the myriad benefits of a green energy economy and country. With a Just Transition …

C40 Mayors Agenda for a Green and Just Recovery

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold and health concerns remain paramount, cities are already taking the first steps towards recovery. Through the Global Mayors COVID-19 Recovery Task Force, leading city mayors have committed to providing the swiftest and strongest possible rebound for their citizens in line with the principles of the Global Green New Deal. Their collective vision is set out in a new report, C40 Mayors’ Agenda for a Green and Just Recovery. Alongside it, we’ve assembled expert views and ambitious ideas from around the world. Beyond simply underpinning the Agenda itself, these articles also provide guides for …

Rhetoric vs. Reality: The Myth of “Renewable Natural Gas” for Building Decarbonization

Policymakers seeking to cut emissions and reduce reliance on fossil fuels are increasingly examining energy use within buildings, which account for nearly 40% of carbon emissions globally. One of the largest drivers of these emissions is the burning of fossil fuels like gas for home heating, hot water, and cooking. In 2018, carbon emissions from U.S. buildings increased 10% due to growth in these uses alone.

Gas utilities, which rely on maintaining and expanding fuel delivery infrastructure to buildings to generate revenue, view electrification as an existential crisis. The industry’s response has been to pitch fossil gas alternatives (“FGAs”) – …

Solving the Climate Crisis

American leadership and ingenuity are central to solving the climate crisis. With the devastating health and economic consequences of climate change growing at home and abroad, the United States must act urgently, guided by science, and in concert with the international community to provide a livable climate for today’s youth and future generations. We must harness the technological innovation of the moonshot, the creativity of our entrepreneurs, the strength of our workers, and the moral force of a nation endeavoring to establish justice for all. Working together, we will avert the worst impacts of the climate emergency and build a …

Carbon Impacts of Reinstating the U.S. Crude Export Ban

A growing body of research has shown that continued investment in fossil fuel extraction will put global climate goals out of reach. The contradiction between a climate-safe emissions trajectory and increasing fossil fuel production is most stark in the United States, which the shale boom has made the world’s leading oil and gas producer. One key factor in triggering this boom was the 2015 removal of the decades-old ban on crude oil exports. As Jim Teague, the chief executive of Enterprise Products, the U.S.’s largest crude exporter, told The Dallas Morning News in November 2019, “Without the crude oil export …

Why Fee and Dividend Will Reduce Emissions Faster Than Other Carbon Pricing Policy Options

The Fee and Dividend carbon pricing policy is the single most effective way to quickly and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, is causing the Earth to heat up, resulting in dangerous changes to the climate system. To minimize future impacts, GHG emissions must be lowered dramatically and urgently. To do so, financial incentives must be aligned with climate realities by “putting a price on carbon.” While there are many carbon pricing policies being considered, only Fee and Dividend has all the …

Low-Income Community Solar: Utility Return Considerations for Electric Cooperatives

This paper briefly identifies project structures making low-income community solar projects more scalable, replicable, and cost-effective for electric cooperative and municipal utilities. The report explores the tradeoffs between utility project returns and providing energy bill savings for low-income subscribers, as well as some of the key lessons learned from previously successful solar pilot projects in low-income communities. …

Environmental Enforcement Under Trump

When it comes to enforcing environmental law, the Trump Administration is off to a very
slow start. So far, the Justice Department has collected 60 percent less in civil penalties than
polluters had paid on average by this time in the first year of Presidents Barack Obama,
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The cases this year are smaller, requiring much less
spending on cleanup, and resulting in fewer measurable reductions in pollutants that end up
in our air or water. While the early news is neither encouraging nor surprising, enforcement
results may vary over the short term. The actions …

Lights Out in the Cold: Reforming Utility Shut-Off Policies as If Human Rights Matter

This report provides a comprehensive overview of common utility shut-off policies employed by utilities nationwide, explores critical issues that should be considered in the development of disconnection policies, and calls for concrete action toward establishing policies that protect the well-being of all utility customers and the eventual elimination of utility disconnections.…

Big-Money Courts Decide Fate of Local Fracking Rules

Through campaign contributions and support for pre-emption laws, oil and gas interests are undermining communities’ right to limit or regulate industrial activities. Many local governments have responded to quick booms in fracking or the injection of fracking waste by enacting stricter regulations, bans, or moratoria. This report discusses how fracking companies and state governments have challenged many of these local bans, as well as how state supreme courts have upheld some of them. Other local bans, however, have been struck down by courts elected with money from fracking companies and other fossil fuel interests.

Most state constitutions outline the boundaries …