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Inside Climate News published over the weekend, in collaboration with 9 newspapers across 7 Southeastern states, a series of stories called “Caught Off Guard” describing how and why the region lags behind others in renewable electricity even though it faces some of the biggest global warming threats in the nation. What these news outlets found was similar across the region — “communities struggling with funding, or with a lack of political will, and the need for technological breakthroughs to meet climate change head-on.”
Why This Matters: The Southeast is particularly vulnerable on its coast due to increasingly severe storms and flooding, but the region’s problems extend far inland too. One of the problems is an unwillingness by the region’s utilities to switch to renewables now that solar power is more affordable — many cities have not made significant commitments to cut carbon emissions. In addition, there is a misconception that only the coastlines have climate change concerns and many people in the region are unaware that they are significantly at risk in many areas due to increasing precipitation causing inland flooding that is made worse by aging infrastructure. And politics are a big problem too — Republican elected officials in southern states and cities are under the false impression that the private sector will do what is needed to adapt without additional regulations. But of course, if that were true, they would have done more already. With the South Carolina primary coming up later this month, it is a good time to start the education process and to find ways to ramp up solar development across the region.
Take Alabama, For Example
Many Alabama cities are making carbon-cutting goals without ever mentioning the words carbon or climate. The coastal region is vulnerable to storms in the Gulf of Mexico and dead zones caused by nutrient pollution and warming ocean temperatures. But progress on mitigation and adaptation in the state is slow. Birmingham Watch reported that even though Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin promised in December to pivot toward prioritizing sustainability, local non-profits are frustrated because “the city doesn’t have a strategy for addressing sustainability or environmental justice or climate change or anything related to those issues.” And the lack of a plan has real consequences for low-income residents because they are unduly impacted by pollution and high energy costs resulting from a failure to switch to cheaper new renewable energy. The city has other big environmental problems too — from water pollution to industrial blight to traffic. Still, many locals suspect that Alabama Power is also a big impediment.
Kentucky Stuck on Coal
Cities like Louisville, Kentucky, whose mayor, Mayor Greg Fischer “has declared a climate emergency, proposed a climate action plan and set a goal of reducing citywide carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.” But Louisville Gas and Electric, the local utility, depends on coal and they’re not making hard and fast carbon reduction commitments so Fischer is stuck, even though his local city council is pressuring him to pressure the utility to cut emissions. The numbers are daunting — currently, the utility runs on 80% coal, 19% natural gas, and together hydro and solar comprise only one percent of its power generation.
By WW0 Staff For the United States, the post-Trump, pre-COP26 road to Glasgow has been paved with ambition and humility. In a major speech, the President’s Envoy, John Kerry, previewed the results of his climate diplomacy before heading into two weeks of intense deliberations of world leaders. Speaking at the London School of Economics — […]
Next week, the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow will draw hundreds of world leaders to Glasgow to determine the path forward five years after the Paris Climate Agreement (for a primer, read this) as new science underscores the urgency. The conference aims to squeeze countries to strengthen the commitments they’ve made towards securing global net-zero […]
By Amy Lupica, ODP Daily Editor In a report released last week, the Department of Defense (DOD) confirmed that existing risks and security challenges in the US are being made worse due to “increasing temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions caused by climate change. Now, the Pentagon is […]
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