Alvaro Sanchez, environmental equity director at The Greenlining Institute in Oakland, California, about the steps needed to begin fixing inequities in clean energy. His organization works to reverse racial disparities in economic opportunity, and energy is a big part of its efforts.
“What I have been thinking about in the last couple of weeks has been that it almost feels like finally everybody sees what we have been saying for a very long time,” he said, “that systematic oppression, white supremacy and racism are really at the core of the way we’ve developed everything here.”
So how do we begin to deal with this problem as it applies to renewable energy? Sanchez thinks that the government needs to take a leading role to make sure that the benefits of clean energy are available to everyone. The government is a leading funder of research and development for clean energy and provider of subsidies for projects, and he wants to see this funding come with more of a focus on equity.
Ultimately, he said, this is good for business, because renewable energy companies would be reaching many more potential employees and customers.
ENERGY EQUITY
AFFORDABLE CLEAN ENERGY FOR ALL
OUR VISION
Energy should be affordable, so that no one has to go without. Energy should be clean, so that no one is harmed by fossil fuel pollution. Energy should be resilient, so that its there when we need it. Communities of color must play a lead role in our transition to a clean energy economy—as beneficiaries, as decision-makers, and as the entrepreneurs and workers that will build our clean energy future.
THE CHALLENGE
Decades of redlining and discrimination in energy and housing policy have long forced many communities of color to live near polluting facilities like fossil fueled power plants, which have made people sick and shortened our lives. It has also led to low income and environmental justice communities having less reliable service and less access to energy efficiency and clean energy technologies. Income and wealth gaps have left our communities with less money to cover our basic needs, and too many people are forced to make difficult sacrifices in order to keep the lights on. Affordable clean energy can help address all of these challenges, but existing programs and policies often fail to target benefits toward the communities that need them the most. This happens in part because of a policy making structure that doesn’t give communities enough of a voice in the decisions that impact their lives.
OUR RESPONSE
Greenlining works to ensure that the policies that build our clean energy future center and prioritize communities of color. We work toward:
- Affordable clean energy: Greenlining’s Energy Equity team works to ensure that communities of color have access to clean energy technologies like solar, energy storage, and home energy management tools. Additionally, we work to ensure affordable clean energy, because no one should ever have to decide between whether to buy groceries or pay the electric bill.
- Energy efficiency: We see energy efficiency as a crucial piece of the effort to create both healthy homes and thriving communities. Investments in energy efficiency, when done right, can lower energy costs for families, make homes healthier, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, grow the clean energy economy and create jobs.
- Healthy homes and communities: We work to ensure that energy efficiency policies and programs reach and benefit our communities, so that our homes are healthier and more comfortable inside, and are cheaper to light, heat, and cool. We also work on building electrification—converting from gas to electricity for things like heating, water heating, and cooking—to ensure that, in addition to helping fight climate change, these policies maximize benefits and minimize risks for our communities.
- Active community engagement in energy decision-making: In all areas of our Energy Equity work, Greenlining advocates for active community engagement in decision-making. We work to ensure that legislators, regulators and power providers listen to our communities before making decisions that impact our lives.
- Job and entrepreneurship opportunities: We advocate for workforce development and local job opportunities that provide family-supporting wages, good benefits, and opportunities for career advancement. We also advocate for supplier diversity and other policies and programs that support entrepreneurs and business owners of color.
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A new report says the United States can get to 90 percent clean energy by 2035 in a way that adds millions of jobs and reduces energy bills.
The report, from the University of California, Berkeley, and GridLab, brings together several important threads in energy policy and economics to show how the country can move almost completely away from fossil fuels.
David Wooley, one of the co-authors and a Berkeley faculty member, said in a conference call that the benefits of this transition could help to repair the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic.
“The benefits of a 90 percent clean power sector are so large that it is not only feasible, it’s essential that we achieve it to hasten recovery from the current crisis, and to avoid or mitigate a next one driven by climate change,” he said.
The report looks at the environmental and economic implications of going to 90 percent carbon-free electricity, which would involve a major expansion of wind, solar and energy storage. This would save money for electricity consumers because the costs of renewable energy continue to decline relative to the costs of fossil fuels.
Among the conclusions: Greenhouse gas emissions would drop by 1.6 billion tons per year in 2035 compared to today, while the growth in the clean energy sector would lead to 500,000 new full-time jobs every year and a decrease in wholesale electricity costs of 13 percent.
The
think tank Energy Innovation did a companion report that takes a deeper look at
the policies that would help to bring about this scenario. The recommendations
include a federal clean energy standard that would call for the country to
reach 90 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 and 100 percent by 2045.
In the conference call, I asked how much of the changes spelled out in the
report are because of market forces and how much are because of policy changes.
Sonia Aggarwal, a co-author of the Energy Innovation report, said that the
electricity market is responding to the low prices of renewable energy, but
that progress is not fast enough to address concerns about climate change. She
said the current market is constrained by the actions of regulators and the
fact that some of the leading energy companies have been slow to phase out
fossil fuels.
In the current political environment, it is difficult to imagine that Congress
would pass a national clean energy standard.
But political viability isn’t the point, at least not right now. The authors
are aiming to show what the path to a clean grid looks like, which is an
important step toward building support for making it happen.
The think tank Energy Innovation did a companion report that takes a deeper look at the policies that would help to bring about this scenario. The recommendations include a federal clean energy standard that would call for the country to reach 90 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 and 100 percent by 2045.
In the conference call, I asked how much of the changes spelled out in the report are because of market forces and how much are because of policy changes.
Sonia Aggarwal, a co-author of the Energy Innovation report, said that the electricity market is responding to the low prices of renewable energy, but that progress is not fast enough to address concerns about climate change. She said the current market is constrained by the actions of regulators and the fact that some of the leading energy companies have been slow to phase out fossil fuels.
