Climate Action
Creating Clean, Healthy Communities and Jobs
On January 20th, 2021, the Biden Administration signed an executive order to re-enter the Paris Climate Agreement. The following week, the White House also signed an executive order outlining a series of actions to address climate change. Some of these actions include:
Placing the climate crisis at the center of US foreign policy and national security
Taking a government-wide approach to the climate crisis, reducing climate pollution at every sector of the economy
Using the buying power of the federal government to drive the markets, such as transitioning government fleets to clean clean electricity, with a focus on procurement from US sources, and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies
Empowering workers by rebuilding infrastructure to a sustainable economy (particularly focusing on communities impacted by the energy transition , including rural communities)
Creating new federal service jobs in conservation, agriculture and reforestation, focusing on union jobs for underrepresented workers
Securing environmental justice and spurring economic opportunity
More from the United Nations on the Paris Climate Agreement HERE.
Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation tool HERE.
Southeast Regional Climate Center website HERE.
We here in Kentucky must do our part. The future of our planet is at a critical point: We must reach 80% reduction in greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 to keep global temperature increases under 2°C (3.6°F). While most efforts toward this goal have been focused on reducing fossil fuel use, new science shows natural climate solutions—based on the conservation, restoration and management of forests, grasslands and wetlands—can deliver up to 37% of the needed emission reductions by 2030. Combined with wider adoption of renewable energy and other technologies, natural climate solutions are essential to keeping our climate safe.
Weather events have already increasingly demonstrated more flooding events in Louisville and other river cities. The unpredictability of these events create challenges for disaster preparedness, agriculture, and human health.
The Kentucky Conservation Committee has been working on issues relating to climate change, including support for reforesting and reclaiming abandoned mine lands, support for greater use of native plants which are more resilient, and diversifying our energy sources with clean energy, efficiency and renewables.
This page provides links to additional resources to support the recommendations in our guide, “Key Steps for Climate Action in Kentucky”. You may download the guide, and we also can provide printed copies for your organization. Contact us to request.
Key Principles Around Climate Action
The last comprehensive climate action plan for Kentucky to come from the state’s Energy and Environment Cabinet dates back to 2011. Since that time the state has produced more limited reports on climate and environmental impacts relating to items such as the Clean Power Plan, a federal climate initiative dating back to 2015.
Local agencies, local nonprofits and national organizations with local ties have produced aspirational climate plans as late as 2016. Many of these plans focus primarily in the energy sector.
The Kentucky Conservation Committee, working with strategic partners, has outlined key steps for climate action in Kentucky, broadly including these areas:
Our Principles in Working With Communities:
Research from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication shows that a majority of voters in Kentucky understand that climate change is not only real, but that something must be done about the problem. And, almost as importantly, they now understand that those coal jobs that politicians promised to bring back will not be returning. Link here.
The Kentucky Conservation Committee was founded in the mid-70s as a collaborative where organizations and citizens could come together from their different interests to find common ground and discuss and act on what is important to them in the conservation spectrum.
Starting with four core conservation organizations, we now partner with over two dozen groups and coalitions to address the needs of frontline communities. Today, it is understood that what is common to most conservation issues is a fundamental recognition that citizens have a right to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment. And we believe that much of what will drive our progress is through citizens of each community having direct engagement on these issues. KCC believes in lifting up the voices of those who are directly affected by the impacts of pollution and the impacts of having less-than-representative democracy.
There are several excellent writings that capture some of these fundamental principles. KCC subscribes to the Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing as a philosophy for ensuring that local communities have a voice in their own communities. The basic principles are:
Be Inclusive
Emphasize Bottom-Up Organizing
Let People Speak for Themselves
Work Together in Solidarity and Mutuality
Build Just Relationships Among Ourselves
Commit to Self-Transformation
Collaborative initiatives such as the Climate Justice Alliance have also worked collectively to outline guidance for frontline communities on core conservation areas. These include:
Building Local Living Economies
Zero Waste
Regional Food Systems
Public Transportation
Clean Community Energy
Efficient, Affordable, Durable Housing
Ecosystem Restoration and Stewardship
Building Community Resilience
Grassroots Economies
Rights to Land, Water, Food Sovereignty
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