By Andrew Szwak, Manager of Governmental Affairs
Across the globe, we’ve come to an economic halt with the
disturbing rise of the COVID-19 pandemic. And with that halt, news
coverage has noted the corollary drop in climate emissions.
While emissions are down today, the havoc this pandemic has wreaked on our health, communities, jobs, and nation is immense. It is also a blow to our global climate reduction goals, with the potential to lose sight of our commitments. Instead, we must rise to this challenge and rethink how to drive our economy and meet climate objectives with nature-based approaches in mind.
At Openlands, we have put strategic focus on dealing with climate change and the nature-based solutions that can mitigate it. Nature-based solutions can provide 37% of the carbon reductions the world needs to comply with the Paris Agreement, and yet it receives only 1-2% of the investment.
In Illinois, one of the biggest climate change initiatives has
coalesced around state legislation called the Clean
Energy Jobs Act (CEJA). A diverse coalition
of labor supporters, utility groups, and environmental organizations wrote CEJA
to address four fundamental priorities:
- Transition all energy generation to renewable
sources by 2050,
- Remove all carbon from energy generation by
2030,
- Take 1 million gas and diesel vehicles off the
roads, and
- Promote jobs and equitable economic opportunity
in the process.
These are ambitious goals, and necessary to ensure thriving
communities, economies, and ecologies in the future. But we must ensure that nature-based jobs and
economies are included. Our ability to advance nature-based solutions gives
Openlands and conservation organizations like us a key role within the global
movement to curb the climate crisis, and serve as important tools
in Illinois’ arsenal to meet these ambitious goals.
So how should
conservation and nature-based solutions fit into CEJA?
1.Renewable energy and nature-based solutions need new job training opportunities.
The transition to renewable energy requires technicians and project managers who know these new technologies and the regulations that govern them. Similarly, increasing nature-based solutions demands more ecologists, landscape architects, engineers, hydrologists, and agriculturalists with specialized knowledge of how to install and maintain them. CEJA plans to create job training hubs for individuals to learn renewable energy skills. We are requesting that these hubs also include opportunities to learn green infrastructure installation and maintenance, urban forestry, regenerative farming practices, and other essential skills to increase nature-based climate solutions.
2. CEJA authorizes local governments to create Community Energy and Climate Plans.
These plans will guide investments in renewable energy,
transportation, and workforce development. They provide excellent opportunities
to embed natural climate solutions into the suite of tools that Illinois
communities will use to combat climate change. Rural communities in particular
will be well-positioned to prioritize workforce training and funding for
natural climate solutions into their efforts. Consequently, Openlands is
advocating for mandatory consideration of natural resources and natural climate
solutions in these Community Energy and Climate Plans. We also hope to use
these plans to build momentum for more concerted efforts to incentivize
nature-based solutions.
3. CEJA incentivizes new renewable energy installations, such as community solar and wind facilities.
Energy generated by these facilities will need connections
to the electricity grid. Unfortunately, renewable energy in other
states has followed dirty energy’s lead by targeting public lands
for transmission and siting of new projects. Protected public lands, on which
nature-based solutions are so abundant, should never be sacrificed to
accommodate additional, and often redundant, energy infrastructure. Openlands
is advocating strongly for CEJA to include better safeguards against
destruction of protected lands related to new energy projects.
We are working hard to align CEJA more closely with the
interests of conservation. WE NEED YOU to support our work with your own
advocacy. Lend your voice to passing the Clean Energy Jobs Act by contacting
your state legislators using this form and
ask them to include nature-based climate solutions in the final bill.
