On this Earth Day 2021, we reflect on the wonder of this watery orb and take stock of the efforts that a talented and tenacious group of L4GG volunteers has taken to address climate change.
The planet’s survival has never been more tenuous. Right now, 40 world leaders, including heavy-emitters China and India, are meeting with US Climate Envoy John Kerry in the Biden Administration’s Leaders Summit on Climate to highlight both the urgency of the issue and the economic opportunities presented by climate change solutions. Reputable scientists agree that we likely have less than a decade to dramatically shift policies to avoid catastrophic impacts from a warming planet.
While we have high hopes for these world leaders, L4GG will not sit idly by waiting for federal leadership historically mired in bureaucracy. Instead, we have worked, and will continue to work, in the trenches to help local governments reach climate targets creating renewable energy demand from the ground up.
Since 2018, L4GG has provided direct assistance to cities to expedite their shift to 100% renewable energy and to help meet the goals of the Paris Accord in the absence of federal leadership. Scientists and advocates agree that ambitious and rapidly expanded bottom-up action, drawing on the policies of the most successful states, cities, and businesses, could reduce emissions by up to 37 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. L4GG has been working with local governments to turn verbal commitments into tangible climate action.
Specifically, L4GG has worked with Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Sierra Club to prepare State Energy Profiles that provide local decision-makers critical information necessary to create a viable climate action strategy. The State Profiles provide an overview of the legal landscape affecting renewable energy, including obstacles to municipalization, utility commission policies and procedures, sample franchise agreements, and other tools critical for implementing renewable energy targets. The profiles have supported the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 Program, have been distributed to more than 200 local decision makers to advance renewable energy policies, and have been hailed as a ‘game changer’. The completed State Profiles covering New York, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, can be found here, with 10 additional State Profiles to be published in the next several months.
In addition, L4GG volunteers have been working with Rocky Mountain Institute and cities to identify creative tools for enhancing renewable energy. We have prepared ready-to-use legal memos describing how municipalities can use Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPAs) to increase renewable energy portfolios, even in more conservative areas where traditional utilities are most prevalent. We have produced VPPA memos for Ohio, Missouri, Minnesota, and Virginia and have provided training to over 34 municipalities (and counting) on the use of these agreements. And we will continue to provide direct assistance to municipalities as we receive requests.
This work would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of incredible L4GG volunteers and without the financial support of our donors. Thank you to the more than 200 talented and dedicated L4GG volunteers who have assisted with this work, and to the generous donors who have given to L4GG’s mission over the years.
The impacts of climate change are already being felt disproportionately by vulnerable communities and communities of color. In 2021, we expanded our Climate Change program to focus on climate justice. We’re now providing direct legal assistance to communities impacted by climate change. For example, we’re working with grassroots organizations in Wisconsin to help local tribes enforce tribal treaty rights using a recent Supreme Court decision that may impact their lands.
L4GG volunteers also are working directly with advocates in Michigan to provide legal research that will inform the fight for a guaranteed right to affordable, clean drinking water. This work feeds into a nationwide research project that L4GG has launched to determine the state of affordable clean drinking water in all 50 states and to consider state and national policies on the issue. There is so much work to be done to reduce greenhouse gases and to assist those most directly affected by climate change. We could not do this without your help. Join us!
As we watch with bated breath to see whether world leaders will succeed in implementing real change at the highest levels, L4GG will continue to make immediate change at the local, state, and regional levels, helping those directly impacted by climate change.
The time is now, the mission is critical. It’s up to us.
Jillian Blanchard
Director, L4GG Climate Change Program