For the first time, the report includes a special section focused on clean energy and climate, A Climate in Crisis: Solving the Challenge and Addressing Historic Inequities. This section helps chronicle the history of environmental justice in the United States; highlights current reforms underway nationally; and summarises the clean energy workforce, economic investment, and restorative climate justice opportunities enabled under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) for Black and Brown communities.
“The wind, solar, and battery storage industries already employ more than 500,000 Americans across all 50 states, and these sectors are expected to create between 800,000 and 1.3 million new jobs by 2030” ACORE President and CEO Gregory Wetstone and National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial jointly wrote. “But simply acknowledging the growing economic opportunity through the renewable energy transition is not enough. We must ensure that Black, Brown, and underserved communities can fully participate.”
Over the next two decades, American companies plan to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in new wind, solar, and battery storage projects to replace aging, expensive, and heavily polluting fossil fuel plants and provide power for an increasingly electrified economy with a growing fleet of electric vehicles. Deploying more renewable energy will lead to better air and water quality, lower electricity bills, and new career opportunities. The IRA, enacted last August, includes key provisions that can help ensure the economic benefits of the clean energy transition are equitably shared.
In the new climate and clean energy section of the State of Black America® report, the nation’s foremost experts on environmental justice, energy policy, renewable energy, and civil rights highlight necessary steps to achieve a more just and equitable transition to a clean energy economy.
The section features contributions from:
Jennifer Granholm, US Secretary of Energy
The Honorable Shalanda H. Baker, author of Revolutionary Power: An Activist's Guide to the Energy Transition and our nation's first Deputy Director for Energy Justice
Dr. Robert Bullard, “Father of Environmental Justice,” Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy and Founding Director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University
Marc H. Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League
Gregory Wetstone, President and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy
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