Just Transitions

Trump promotes expanding production of oil, natural gas and coal, which cause climate change, because he argues that would give the U.S. the lowest-cost electricity. Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s top lobbying group, said that as voters have changed the balance of political power in Washington, “the affordability message is unmistakable.”

Ife Kilimanjaro, executive director of the U.S. Climate Action Network, said Democrats should reject that proposal and use their stronger position to pass legislation that actually builds out much-needed clean energy.

Results deliver a stinging rebuke to the Trump White House, as campaigners hail victories for 'climate and clean energy champions'

Climate campaigners in the US and all around the world are celebrating today, after the US midterm elections resulted in an historic 'blue wave' that saw Democrats secure control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Dr. Ife Kilimanjaro, executive director of the U.S. Climate Action Network, said the results "demonstrate a powerful rejection by people across the country of the Trump administration's corrupt, pro-polluter agenda".

While Trump has cancelled many clean energy projects and funding, there is hope that newly elected Democrats could start to turn the tide and lead their states back toward renewables.

“Voters across the country have sent a powerful message and now elected leaders in Washington must get to work to deliver relief to the American people. One of the clearest ways to do that is to champion a transition off dirty, polluting fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy,” says Dr Ife Kilimanjaro, Executive Director, U.S. Climate Action Network.

The US Environmental Protection Agency‘s Administrator Lee Zeldin has “betrayed” the agency’s core mission and set a “dangerous” agenda that is hurting public health and the environment, according to an open letter calling for Zeldin’s firing.

The letter, signed by 163 local and national environmental and health organizations, says Zeldin must be held accountable for his actions.

​“No EPA administrator in history—Democratic or Republican—has so brazenly betrayed the agency’s core mission. EPA’s foremost purpose is to protect human health and the environment. With Administrator Lee Zeldin at the helm, EPA has abandoned its mission, creating damage that will take decades to address,” the organizations, which include the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Public Citizen and the US Climate Action Network, said in the letter.

A coalition of 200 pressure groups is calling for a moratorium on new data centers in the US.

The group, led by national environmental organization Food & Water Watch, has written a letter to Congress calling for a ban on the approval and construction of data centers.

It cites what it describes as “massive and unsustainable consumption by data centers of energy and water resources, and skyrocking utility costs for families and small businesses," as reasons a ban is needed.

Signatories include the US branches of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, as well as the US Climate Action Network and dozens of regional and state organizations.

​Often, philanthropic funding allows networks to provide services to members at little or no cost. That’s a boon for leaders like Anthony Diaz, executive director of the Newark Water Coalition.

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“I’m so in the trenches,” says Diaz, “that sometimes all I can see is the trench.” But after joining the 190-member U.S. Climate Action Network, Diaz can access technical, legal, and tactical expertise to supercharge his work at the local level.​

“While we welcome strengthened provisions on the Just Transition Work Program, these wins at COP30 are decisively tempered by the disappointing omission of any reference to fossil fuels in the final text,” Ife Kilimanjaro, executive director of the US Climate Action Network, said in a press release. “Failing to name and address the climate crisis’ root cause undermines the credibility of the entire process.”

“The sheer numbers are horrifying,” said Ife Kilimanjaro, executive director of the non-profit US Climate Action Network, which works with groups around the world to combat the climate crisis.

“But for us they’re more than numbers,” she added. “These are people with lives, with families, with hopes and dreams. They are people like us, even if they happen to live in a different part of the world.”

Also in: ProPublica, Bill McKibben's The Crucial Years

“What I’m hearing is folks from the Global South are upset, and rightfully so. And they’re also saying, ‘Hey, the biggest blocker and the biggest bully isn’t in the room. Let’s see what we can get done while they’re not here.’"

— Analyah Schlaeger dos Santos, co-chair of the international policy committee of the U.S. Climate Action Network

Civil society has a crucial role in the global conversation right now, said Analyah Schlaeger dos Santos of Minneapolis. She is at the Bonn talks representing the U.S. Climate Action Network, an advocacy group for which she is co-chair of the international policy committee.

“The first COP ended just a few hours after I was born,” she said. “Elders often don’t understand that, for people our age, the climate crisis, and all the related political and social tensions have been part of our entire life.”

It is frustrating and perplexing that the world and its major economies haven’t decisively tackled the visible problems of a warming planet, she said.