Issue: Coal

The concept of a “just transition” has permeated mainstream discourse, yet those who will likely be most impacted by the energy transition – frontline workers and their communities – have mostly been excluded from the conversation. This report, derived from over 100 listening sessions and interviews with workers and frontline community members, encourages policymakers to:

Go Big: Be guided by a just transition vision that is ambitious and comprehensive in order to address the scope of impacts for affected communities and industries. Job creation, labor standards, and workers’ rights must be included.
Go Wide: Impacts from economic transitions can be felt in a number of ways, from financial to social to psychological. Policymakers should engage with existing social infrastructure such as labor unions, frontline community groups, and Indigenous nations to make sure support is readily available.
Go Far: While the climate crisis is urgent, just transition plans must not be fixated on the short-term. Instead, policymakers should include long-term commitments to workers and their communities as part of their vision and take into account differences in generational needs between older, established workers and those just entering the workforce.

In addition, the report addresses how labor and advocacy organizations need to develop authentic, trusting relationships with each other to build political and policy alignment around just transition goals. One way to start is to establish and expand internal committees and capacities to understand each other’s issues and perspectives.

This report looks at the intersection of pollution from refining and burning fossil fuels, repiratory diseases caused or exacerbated by this pollution, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and race and racial inequality in the United States. It makes the case that the CARES Act constitutes a bailout of the dirty energy sector that spent more to prop-up the fossil fuel industry than it did on health care supplies and investments, even as this industry contributes to the adverse health outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic in communities of color. The report’s key findings also link large financial sector players like big banks, asset management companies, private equity and insurance companies to the chain of carbon and chemical emissions that have disproprotionately negative impacts on communities of color and low-income communities.            

From a nationally representative poll of registered voters fielded from Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2020, more than eight in 10 (82%) say achieving 100% clean energy should be the primary goal of U.S. energy policy, and more than six in 10 (63%) say developing more renewables should be the priority when seeking to address U.S. energy needs, compared to gas (15%) or nuclear (9%). Almost six in 10 (58%) say increasing production of renewables is more likely to create a greater number of good jobs than increasing production of fossil fuels (25%). 

From a nationally representative poll of registered voters fielded on Oct. 13, 2020, three-quarters (73%) of voters say they are worried about climate change, including 87% of Black Protestants, 82% of nonwhite Catholics, 77% of white Catholics, 76% of Jews, and 57% of white evangelical Protestants. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of voters want a multi-trillion-dollar federal economic stimulus to invest in clean energy infrastructure as part of COVID-19 recovery, including 72% of Black Protestants and 54% of white evangelical Protestants. 

79% of voters are more likely to support a lawmaker who supports policies that encourage renewabl energy options (such as wind, solar, and waste to energy technologies), compared to 51% of voters who are more likely to support a lawmaker who supports policies that encourage the development of more fossil fuel energy, such as coal and oil. 
Voters are most likely (85%) to support a lawmaker who supports legislation that would provide additional ways for home or business owners to finance energy upgrades, such as improved insulation, lighting, or windows. 
77% of voters are more likely to support a lawmaker who wants to change North Carolina’s regulatory policy to allow for more competition and consumer choice. 
A pluarility of voters (38%) see climate change as a “serious problem” and think “immediate action” is necessary. An addiitonal 22% support “some action.” 
60% of voters recognize that the effects of climate change “have already begun to happen” and 59% understand climate change is “mainly the result of manmade pollution.”