Turning Promises into Progress: Lessons from Campinas’s Climate Action Plan nicole.greenfi… Wed, 01/29/2025 - 12:18 .black-header-text { color: #000 !important; }

Cities are at the forefront of climate impacts, and city governments are key actors in unlocking action to build urban resilience and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, the number of cities and regions committing to climate action and net zero has increased significantly, but many of them are struggling to translate that ambition into action at the necessary pace.

Campinas, Brazil. Photo by Carlose Bassan

Campinas, Brazil is a good illustration of how cities are working to integrate urban climate action into all aspects of city life. Campinas has also demonstrated how to enable rapid implementation through a focus on three essential elements: making climate action about people, prioritizing an integrated implementation and getting the right people together. 

Campinas’s Local Climate Action Plan

Campinas is a sunny city in southeastern Brazil, and home to over 1 million residents. As with many cities worldwide, it is pioneering sustainable urban development that addresses the climate emergency.

In June 2024, the Campinas city government launched its Local Climate Action Plan (PLAC). Scientific evidence and extensive engagement underpinned the creation of the plan, which lays out 20 actions and 96 sub-actions the city government will take to reach its goals of becoming a climate-resilient community, achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and creating multiple benefits for climate, people and nature.

Strategic Objectives of the Campinas Local Climate Action Plan

Campinas’s plan also includes several unique aspects that set it apart from other city-level climate action plans.  

An Integrated, People-Centered Approach

The development of PLAC reflects the city's approach to climate action which connects climate priorities with nature and, critically, people. It communicates an understanding that climate action must put community at the center, and focus on enhancing quality of life for current and future residents.

In the Campinas process, an important starting point was identifying existing policies — plans in areas such as mobility, housing and civil defense — that contribute to climate-related objectives, even if not explicitly labeled as such.  A group composed of city officials (supported by WRI) then brought together stakeholders, including a wider city-level multi-departmental group, for workshops to explore how to build on initial momentum and identify opportunities to raise ambition or develop new measures. They later assessed these measures against updated evidence on future climate hazards and greenhouse gas emissions, which allowed them to come to a final list of key and urgent integrated climate actions.

Campinas city officials and WRI Brasil staff members participate in a workshop.

This approach treated climate action as an intrinsic part of urban development and city systems, rather than as an isolated effort. As a result, the plan is structured around five pillars, or axes, which collectively outline how Campinas must transform its urban systems. Officials designed actions and sub-actions to achieve synergies between adaptation, mitigation, social inclusion (including bridging the urban services divide) and the restoration of natural ecosystems. They also considered and analyzed tradeoffs.

The axes of Campinas Local Climate Action Plan embody the urban transformations the city wants to achieve for climate resilience, mitigation and improving conditions for both people and nature.

A Roadmap for Early Implementation

The process in Campinas was guided by the belief that the timely realization of some aspects of climate action plans — such as unlocking funds, building technical capacity, modifying or creating related laws, regulations and policy and engaging stakeholders and citizens — can enable faster implementation.

Campinas considered PLAC’s actions in this context, leveraging the expertise of a multidisciplinary group. As the final step in developing the plan, the city created an innovative roadmap that identified roughly 130 short-term activities necessary to unlock action. This roadmap serves as a practical guide for the city team, outlining important steps to ensure feasibility with a focus on the 2032 horizon. Beyond detailing what needs to be done, it also lists the secretariats responsible for each action and important conclusion dates.

For example, the climate action plan includes a series of measures for promoting active mobility in order to transition the Urban Mobility and Sustainable Transport Systems. One measure is the expansion of 150 km of cycling infrastructure in Campinas by 2030, which involves the installation of drinkable water stops and developing shaded areas in key public areas of the city to protect cyclists from the extreme heat. To unlock this, the team mapped necessary short-term steps, including establishing guidelines for the implementation of cycling infrastructure, a priority activity for 2024 that the city team has been actively working on. Other important next steps include:

• Engage and hold a dialogue session with cycling associations, entrepreneurs and municipal authorities involved with cycling infrastructure by June 2025
• Ensure the provision of financial resources in the municipal budget by December 2025
• Revise the Municipal Cycling Plan and include necessary changes, by 2027

A cyclist refills a water bottle at a municipal park in Campinas. PLAC intends to multiply such structures in public spaces to protect cyclists and its population from the impacts of extreme heat. Image by Fernanda Sunega  Bring the Right People Together, Avoiding a Governance Gap

Comprehensive climate action requires the right people come together to make decisions. Acknowledging the importance of governance, Campinas’s officials didn’t wait for the planning process to introduce a decree that created the Municipal Committee for Coping with Climate Change Impacts (Climate Committee). And, with the support of the city’s mayor, it was operational before the PLAC was completed. This avoided a governance gap between planning and implementation, and helped to quickly put the plan into action.

Campinas’s Municipal Committee for Coping with the Impacts of Climate Change

Management Group

(DELIBERATIVE)

Technical Group

 (CONSULTIVE)

Thematic Chambers

(PARTICIPATIVE)

Climate Emergency Group

Municipal government holders in portfolios linked to climate issuesTechnical representatives from involved municipal agenciesRepresentatives of civil society, including from academia, trade unions, business, popular and third- sector entities

 

 

Linked to the Municipal Civil Defense to respond to extreme events and support the Management Group in decision-making

 

 

Campinas’s Climate Committee’s forward thinking allows participative spaces where multiple actors can come together to debate topics around climate change and PLAC implementation. It also predicts the creation of permanent groups looking at specific topics or sectors, known as thematic chambers. They gather through meetings where businesses, NGOs, academia and vulnerable communities are actively involved in debating and expanding climate action. This is a public recognition that climate action is a shared responsibility, and acknowledges that the city government alone cannot drive city-wide change.

Implementation and the Road Ahead

In the six months that followed the decree publication, Campinas’s city team has kept the momentum going by engaging other levels of government, departments and civil society stakeholders in the plan’s implementation. Further research is needed to assess the impact of specific actions and to better understand the barriers and enabling factors.

A significant outcome so far has been the city’s increased visibility as a leader in local-level climate action, both nationally and internationally. Notably, the mayor of Campinas attended COP29 in Azerbaijan, where he participated in debates on multilevel climate governance and sought partnerships to advance PLAC implementation. The timing has been important, as Brazil's updated 2025 nationally determined contribution, or NDC, highlights the importance of collaborating with cities and subnational actors, building on its endorsement of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action.

As for critical next steps, Campinas is prioritizing unlocking finance, starting with its own municipal budget. This effort includes aligning PLAC targets to the city’s financial planning and budget cycle, with particular emphasis on the Multi-Year Plan, known as the PPA in Portuguese, for 2026–2029, which it will draft in 2025. Integrating climate action into city financial decision-making and budgeting helps to embed climate priorities into the work of all departments and government agencies.

Through the Campinas Local Climate Action Plan, we see a positive example of how a city is turning promises into progress, unlocking climate action, and building a future where people, climate and nature are at the heart of urban life. 

WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities has closely supported the city of Campinas in the elaboration of its Climate Action Plan. Our team provided technical support over 15 months for the “Rapid Roadmap for Integrated Climate Action,” a scalable approach that was piloted with the city. WRI Brasil has a long-standing relationship with Campinas. Since 2017, the team has provided technical support to urban mobility, nature-based solutions, biodiversity and forest conservation and restauration projects. In 2025, WRI Brasil will continue to support the city with technical support for the implementation of the PLAC, focusing on climate finance, electrification of the bus fleet and studying the link between local health and extreme heat.

campinas-city.JPG Cities Latin America Climate Cities National Climate Action climate change Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects

• Cities4Forests
• Integrated Climate Action
• Urban Efficiency & Climate
• Urban Development
• Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action

Authors Raisa de Castro Soares Max Jamieson Reynaldo Neto Tiago Silveira

Inclusive Finance Can Deliver Climate Funding into the Hands of People Who Need It Most christian.made… Thu, 01/23/2025 - 19:07

People around the globe are feeling the effects of climate change, but not all to the same degree. The world’s poorest are often hit hardest, from unrelenting drought in East Africa to deadly heatwaves in South Asia and severe flooding in South America.

Financing is essential to address these impacts. Adaptation strategies like buying drought-resistant seeds and installing irrigation to stabilize crop harvests, or reforesting and building seawalls to protect homes against floods, all require that people can save and borrow enough money. Coping with the aftermath of a storm or fire often involves relying on savings, insurance or remittances sent by family members. Replanting after a drought can be made easier by payouts from rainfall insurance. Getting access to clean energy often requires up-front investments to build power lines, install solar panels or switch to electrical appliances.

The low-income people on the frontlines of the climate crisis often don’t have access to these kinds of financial products. And when they do, the finance typically isn’t designed with climate risks or climate resilience in mind.

At the 2024 UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, governments agreed to triple the amount of financial support for climate action in developing countries, to at least $300 billion annually by 2035. But with global conversations focused on ramping up climate finance overall, an equally important question also needs to be answered: How can we get more of this finance to the individual people and communities that need it the most?

Inclusive finance could offer answers.

What Is Inclusive Finance?

Inclusive finance refers to efforts to expand access to everyday financial services — such as savings, credit, insurance, payments and remittances — as a way to reduce poverty and foster development. This involves tailoring financial products so they better meet the needs of low-income people — for instance, by offering microloans or microinsurance to clients who are poorly served, if at all, by mainstream banks.

Over the last half-century, this idea has developed into a large and vibrant ecosystem for delivering financing from commercial funders, impact investors, governments, humanitarian organizations and others to people in need. The inclusive finance sector now includes nearly 5,000 financial institutions in 147 countries that have extensive networks in low-income communities and understand their financial circumstances.

Using Inclusive Finance for Climate Action

This established system can offer a way to channel climate finance already flowing into developing countries directly to poor and vulnerable populations. Currently a relatively small amount of climate finance — less than one-fifth — ends up in the hands of local actors, in part because climate funders have found it challenging to deliver funds to the individual and household levels. Inclusive finance providers can help tackle this challenge by reaching vulnerable populations and offering services designed specifically with these people in mind.

The sector can also help mobilize urgently needed private capital for climate action. Global lending by inclusive financial services providers amounts to over $180 billion annually , and some of these resources could be channeled toward climate action at the grassroots — if financial institutions can work with clients and climate experts to develop solutions that work on the ground.

Early Examples Show the Way Forward

Early attempts are showing that financial innovation for climate impact can yield powerful results.

For example, the pay-as-you-go solar sector has enabled 490 million people , typically in low-income households, to access clean electricity from household solar kits that they could not afford to buy outright.

In Bangladesh, BRAC (one of the world’s largest microfinance lenders) created a contingent line of credit that offered farmers guaranteed access to emergency loans in the case of severe weather events like floods. Unlike insurance, the credit line didn’t require any payment upfront; farmers only paid if they needed to borrow from it. This added level of security gave farmers the confidence to invest in expanding their crop production despite climate risks. Most farmers suffered no flooding and never needed the credit, but saw substantially higher yields and incomes as a result of the higher investment. Farmers who were hit by floods and used the line of credit were better able to cope and saw lower reductions in household consumption as a result of the shock.

In India, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) developed a heat index insurance product that triggers automatic payouts when it is too hot to safely work. The plan — targeted at informal workers like street vendors, construction workers and waste pickers, who may not have full workplace protections — has already generated payouts for tens of thousands of low-income women when temperatures rose to dangerous levels, allowing them to stay home without worrying about lost income or exposing themselves to major health risks.

The world needs far more of this type of innovation. Most financial institutions serving low-income people still offer standard savings, loan and insurance products, which aren’t always a good fit for the climate adaptation and resilience strategies they need to pursue. This deprives people of the ability to fully participate in global climate action and protect themselves from the implications of climate change.

Much More Attention and Innovation Are Needed

All of this represents an opportunity for the climate agenda as well as for inclusive finance stakeholders — if the two sectors can come together around the shared challenge of climate change.

Far more innovation is needed to fully align inclusive finance behind the climate effort, including, for example, on how to best provide anticipatory finance before climate disasters strike. Further experimentation could also build richer and more nuanced global knowledge on which types of financial services are most effective at driving climate action at the local level in particular contexts.

Clearly, inclusive financial services also have their limitations. Loans are not appropriate for every situation and could end up doing harm if deployed in an unscrupulous or careless manner. Climate insurance is difficult and increasingly expensive, sometimes prohibitively so. Many climate investments, such as those in more resilient infrastructure or public transportation, are necessarily large-scale and will continue to require big ticket projects by governments and their development partners.

Nevertheless, there’s a big opportunity for inclusive finance to foster local empowerment and drive grassroots climate action in low-income communities worldwide. To unlock this potential, governments should commit to getting a certain share of climate funding directly into the hands of affected people, including through inclusive financial services, to give them agency over their own climate action.

Meanwhile private actors, including financial institutions and their funders, should substantially increase their investments in developing and scaling better inclusive finance solutions to support resilience and inclusive green technologies. They should also integrate consideration of climate risks and opportunity into all their services.

And above all, people and organizations working in climate change and financial inclusion should make it a priority to start collaborating on this shared and critical agenda.

Taking these deliberate steps can help ensure that climate finance is not only large enough to tackle the enormous challenge, but inclusive enough to meet the needs of all people on our warming planet. As global climate finance discussions build on the high-level agreement in Baku to develop a more detailed climate financing agenda at the next UN climate summit (COP30 in Belem, Brazil), inclusion should be at the heart of the agenda.

Indian-street-vendors-min.jpg Finance climate finance Equity & Governance Type Commentary Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Peter Zetterli Gaia Larsen Edward Davey

Some California Oil Refineries See a Future in Biofuels. Here’s Why That’s Problematic. nicole.greenfi… Thu, 01/23/2025 - 15:12

In many ways, California is leading the transition away from fossil fuels in the United States. The state has established a legal requirement to eliminate 85% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 and enacted several policies aimed specifically at reducing transportation emissions, all while incentivizing electrification. Gasoline demand in the state has been dropping — a trend expected to continue.

And while California is also looking into how to move away from petroleum fuels, some demand will persist for gas- and diesel-powered vehicles, aviation and rail and marine transportation. With no official transition roadmap in place, that means the future of the state’s many oil refineries — and the workers and the communities they support — holds some uncertainty.

California still has the third-largest oil-refining capacity in the U.S., but low-carbon shifts will send refineries on three potential trajectories: Some will shut down permanently, some will remain in business for as long as possible and others might look to convert their operations produce bio-based diesel.

That third path is riddled with challenges and carries with it serious implications.

Over the last several years, state and federal policies that treat biofuels as beneficial to achieving decarbonization targets have driven a rapid increase in the production and consumption of bio-based diesel. And, to date, at least three petroleum refineries in California have pursued conversions.

But with a limited supply of sustainable feedstocks as well as uncertainties around pollution and impacts on workers and communities, a shift to “biorefineries” by some oil refineries could be misguided and requires careful consideration.

A Closer Look at Bio-Based Diesel

Biofuels account for about 6% of the energy used for transportation in the United States. Yet, between 30% and 40% of the nation’s corn supply and 40% to 50% of its soybean oil supply go toward biofuel production, underscoring the vast quantity of crops used to produce only a small fraction of the country’s transportation fuel.

A Biofuel Glossary

Biofuel: A category of liquid fuels made from biomass feedstocks.

Biodiesel: Created when petroleum diesel is blended with vegetable oils (such as soybean oil), animal fats or recycled cooking greases. Biodiesel is not a drop-in fuel, meaning its use is limited to compatible vehicles.

Renewable diesel: A hydrocarbon biofuel that is chemically equivalent to petroleum diesel and can be made from the same feedstocks as biodiesel. Unlike biodiesel, it is a drop-in fuel and can be used interchangeably with petroleum diesel due its chemically similar properties.

Bio-based diesel: An umbrella term for fuels that derive from animal fats and vegetable oils. Both biodiesel and renewable diesel are considered forms of bio-based diesel.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel: Non-fossil alternatives to traditional jet fuels that can be created through a variety of processes. These fuels may not actually be sustainable if they use feedstocks that do not reduce emissions.

In the last two decades, biofuel production in the U.S. has more than tripled, and biodiesel and renewable diesel consumption has grown drastically over the past decade. The consumption spike of bio-based diesel has been particularly prominent in California, which consumes half of the nation’s entire supply. Although the state’s overall diesel use only accounts for 7% of the country’s total, bio-based diesel makes up more than 70% of California’s overall diesel consumption. By contrast, bio-based diesel accounts for only 3.8% of diesel consumption in the rest of the United States.

Climate Dangers of Bio-Based Diesel

Some policies, such as the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), treat bio-based diesel as beneficial for achieving decarbonization targets, citing emissions-reduction benefits. But such calculations don’t tend to account for the fuel’s full greenhouse gas impacts. When bio-based diesel requires the dedicated use of land to grow crops for fuel, it displaces crops for food, which in turn drives emissions from agricultural expansion to meet rising global food demand. When these impacts are fully accounted for, studies show that bio-based diesel is not only more emissions-intensive than fossil fuels, but that it also increases food prices.

Using waste fat, oil and grease feedstocks in the production of bio-based diesel can offer greenhouse gas benefits when they are true wastes that would otherwise be landfilled. In many cases, however, such waste feedstocks are residues or by-products that already go toward the production of other commodities, such as pet food. When the use of these feedstocks for fuels displaces those uses, it can drive up the production of virgin oils to meet demand and negate emissions reduction benefits.   

Why Are Some of California’s Petroleum Refineries Converting?

Across the U.S., the number of refineries converting their production from petroleum to biofuels is on the rise: Such conversions more than doubled between 2019 and 2022. California is leading this shift. At least three of the state’s 11 gasoline refineries — Phillips 66 in Rodeo, Marathon in Martinez and another refinery in Bakersfield — have completed conversions, or have announced plans to convert, to renewable diesel fuel production since 2022.

Others, meanwhile, have shut down operations entirely, citing market dynamics and low profitability as key drivers for their decision.

Several factors are influencing refineries’ decisions to convert.

The California Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the federal Renewable Fuel Standard

California’s LCFS and the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) both provide key incentives that are driving the increased production of biofuels in California.

The LCFS is designed to reduce emissions from the transportation sector and transition the state to low- and zero-carbon fuels. Producers can earn financial credits if their fuel lowers emissions compared to the carbon intensity standard, which becomes more stringent over time.

In line with California’s primary objective to phase out combustion vehicles, the LCFS program has helped support transportation electrification, generating about $4.3 billion for electric fuel pathways. However, the vast majority of the value generated has gone toward combustion-based fuels, particularly biofuels, subsidizing fuel substitution instead of electrification.

Despite the studies showing that biofuels made from crops do not provide climate benefits — and instead increase emissions relative to fossil fuels — the LCFS still issues emissions reduction credits to biofuels. The standard’s calculation methods for determining the carbon intensity of fuels from purpose-grown crops underestimate land-use change due to food-crop displacement. While a majority of California’s bio-based diesel has historically been made from waste products like used cooking oils, which can provide greenhouse gas benefits, virgin vegetable oil from purpose grown-crops has entered the market at a dramatic increase since 2021.

This means that many LCFS credits issued for biofuels increasingly do not represent real emissions reductions. This spike in bio-based fuel credits has also led to a stark decline in credit prices, a reality that some have characterized as the crowding out of support for electrification-based credits. 

The LCFS’s over-incentivization of biofuel production is caused by a trio of factors: the program’s lack of a cap on bio-based oil, the artificially low carbon intensity scores it assigns to these fuels and its interaction with the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Under the RFS, fuel producers are required to buy and blend biofuels into petroleum-based fuels. California has become an especially attractive place for renewable diesel producers to meet these requirements due, in part, to the additional economic boost that the LCFS provides.

Renewable diesel available at the pump at a California gas station. State and federal policies have incentivized renewable diesel production in California. Credit: Sipa USA/Alamy Stock Photo

In November 2024, the California Air Resources Board voted to update the LCFS to limit the amount of bio-based diesel fuels from virgin crop oils to 20% of each company’s bio-based diesel production. While the move is a step in the right direction, loopholes like the exemption of existing facilities from the limit until 2028 make clear that additional action is needed to discourage the continued growth of such fuels in California.

While experts have repeatedly pointed out that these policies have encouraged the conversion of petroleum refineries to biofuel in California, and refineries themselves have been vocal about the economic incentives and general profitability of converting, it remains unclear whether this growth trend will continue.

Other factors influencing the decision to convert

Petroleum refineries’ size may be a deciding factor in whether they choose to convert to biofuel production. Bigger refineries are more likely to survive the decline in petroleum demand and, therefore, more likely to continue with business as usual. Smaller refineries, on the other hand, are more likely to shutter operations entirely if faced with economic difficulty. Refineries at risk of closure, however, will likely not go down without a fight, and may see conversion as a means to keep operating.

Logistically, smaller refineries may be better suited for conversion because the limited supply of true waste feedstocks aligns more closely with their capacity needs. The decision to convert, however, may be limited by the availability of these feedstocks at sufficient scale, since most waste feedstocks already go toward the production of non-fuel commodities.

Smaller refineries may also see conversion as a strategy to delay the expensive and complicated process of decommissioning, and to prevent stranded assets for their shareholders. So far, such extensions of facilities’ lifespans have only been possible and profitable because of the LCFS, RFS and other subsidies from tax credits. Without them, the refineries would likely close permanently since biofuel production is not profitable without subsidies.

Several indicators suggest that conversions could begin to slow down. While limited waste feedstock supplies could encourage refiners to tap into the supply of virgin oils, global markets could limit the economic feasibility of greatly expanding soy production for oil. Additionally, the uncertain future of the RFS requirements could lead to fewer incentives to produce bio-based diesel in the future. Time will tell how these factors will influence California refiners’ decisions around conversion. In the meantime, the immediate impacts of biorefinery conversions and the role they play in the energy transition more broadly need to be closely scrutinized.

Impacts of Refinery Conversions

The uptick in refinery conversions is problematic due to both the increased production of crop-based biofuels and the negative impacts tied to the operation of the biorefineries themselves. 

Greenhouse gas emissions & feedstock availability

Bio-based diesel in California has historically been made from wastes and residues such as used cooking oil and animal fat. If these feedstocks would otherwise have gone to waste, using them to create bio-based diesel can provide fuel that is less emissions-intensive than fossil fuels. But because the LCFS and the federal RFS have created powerful incentives, production of biofuel has increased dramatically and outpaced the available supply of waste fats, oils and greases.

Moreover, many of these feedstocks are not truly wastes because they already help produce non-fuel products. Even when feedstocks are sold as wastes, research has shown that global tracking and documentation are not sufficient to ensure that they are truly wastes, not virgin vegetable oil.

To meet increased bio-based diesel demand, refineries would increasingly need to use virgin vegetable oils such soybean oil, produced from soy crops grown on prime agricultural land, the use of which has risen dramatically over the past few years.

When food crops are diverted to fuel, land elsewhere must be cleared to meet growing global demand for food. When forests or grasslands are cleared to create cropland, large amounts of carbon held in plants and soils are released to the atmosphere.  The global market for soybean oil is also tightly connected to markets for other vegetable oils including palm oil, which further drives global deforestation and related emissions abroad. As soybean oil is diverted to fuel production in the United States, the demand for vegetable oil in food products and cosmetics could be substituted for products such as soybean oil in Brazil or palm oil in Indonesia, both directly linked to recent deforestation.

Health and safety concerns

The pollution directly tied to the biofuel refining process is another important concern. Residents near California’s Rodeo biorefinery, for instance, have spoken out about the expected increase in pollution from the surge in traffic traveling through the area’s densely populated communities. Two lawsuits brought by local environmental groups against the County of Contra Costa alleged that the environmental review processes for the biorefinery had been faulty, and raised concerns about the health impacts of pollutants like volatile organic compounds and particulate matter that the biorefinery would release.

Some California-specific research indicates that flaring by converted biorefineries would also result in nearby communities’ acute exposure to episodic air pollution. These communities are predominantly populated by people of color who have been historically and disproportionately burdened by such exposures. Converted biorefineries’ potential to continue adding to pollution risks and impacts therefore has significant environmental justice implications.

What’s more, the research suggests that refining biomass could increase the risk of explosions and fires, threatening the health and safety of workers and communities. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board opened an investigation in 2023 after a fire broke out at the Martinez biorefinery and seriously injured a worker.

Comprehensive research on the pollution impacts of large-scale renewable diesel processing is still limited, but one recent study found that biofuel refineries across the U.S. release as much, if not more, hazardous air pollutants than petroleum refineries.

Impacts to workers and on revenue

Phillips 66 recently announced that when its Los Angeles refinery closes in the fourth quarter of 2025, it will lay off 600 employees and 300 contractors. Such closures not only lead to the loss of well-paid jobs, but also to the loss of local tax revenues in the communities that hosted the refineries. Retrofitting an oil refinery to produce biofuels may therefore seem like a good strategy to help preserve jobs and tax revenues.

However, the assumption that converting to biofuel production would offer relief to local communities and workers needs to be investigated further, especially given the significant uncertainty about the lifespan of biofuels facilities. California’s 2022 Scoping Plan intends for biofuels, and renewable diesel in particular, to be a bridge fuel until electric or hydrogen-powered trucks make it obsolete. These retrofitted facilities may provide short-term opportunities for workers, but their long-term trajectory is unclear.

Similarly unclear is whether biorefineries can absorb all of the displaced oil refinery workers and/or whether they can generate similar levels of tax revenues as an oil refinery.

Oil refineries typically have a much larger capacity than biofuel facilities, which can produce between 5,000 and 15,000 barrels per day (bpd) — a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of crude that oil refineries can process in a day. The biorefineries’ smaller size and limited production could impact the workforce numbers, but other factors, including a company’s unique workforce strategy, could also play a role.

An oil refinery in Cheyenne, Wyoming, offers a helpful illustration. When it announced in 2020 that it would convert from processing crude oil to producing renewable diesel, its capacity was 52,000 bpd. The refinery also announced it would lay off about 200 workers over 18 months as it made the conversion. Today, that biorefinery has a capacity of 6,000 bpd and employs 80 people, suggesting that capacity reduction is one reason for its post-conversion decreased workforce. Property taxes paid by the company also dropped from about $3.2 million in 2020 to less than $670,000 in 2022.

Similarly, when California’s Marathon Martinez refinery shut down in 2020, it laid off more than 700 workers, including 345 unionized refinery workers. A survey of former workers found they faced significant difficulty finding high-quality, union jobs in the aftermath of the refinery closure. In early 2021, the refinery received a permit to convert its units for renewable diesel production and announced that it expected to employ about 110 workers to run the biofuel facility. One representative from a prominent labor organization said in an email to WRI that the converted Martinez refinery is significantly understaffed after the company used the conversion to biofuels as an opportunity to reduce its workforce.

In contrast, the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo did not lay off any workers when it converted to biofuel production, showing that the overall impact of conversions on workers requires further investigation.

A Roadmap for California’s Energy Transition

Crop-based biofuels cannot be considered a sustainable bridge fuel or a climate-friendly replacement for petroleum-based fuels.

The uptick in petroleum refineries converting to bio-based diesel production in California raises a series of questions and uncertainties. This holds true even as the limited supply of waste feedstocks, the negative climate impacts of utilizing virgin vegetable oil, and the future of the RFS might disincentivize further conversions.  Currently, the excessive incentivization for biofuels risks slowing the necessary move away from liquid fuels while also driving global land-use change and greenhouse gas emissions.

As California strives to achieve its decarbonization targets, policymakers must carefully consider these implications. Developing a transition roadmap that holistically considers the various environmental and social impacts of different transition pathways is an important next step.

tesoro-ca-refinery.jpg Climate North America U.S. Climate fossil fuels biofuels greenhouse gases Type Explainer Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Danielle Riedl Haley Leslie-Bole Devashree Saha

Thinking Beyond the Borehole: Safe Water Supplies Begin with Healthy Watersheds alicia.cypress… Wed, 01/22/2025 - 16:25 .main-content table td { font-size: .8rem; }

Contributors: Brett Gleitsmann (Conrad N. Hilton Foundation) and Jason Lopez (Millennium Water Alliance)

Expanding water coverage to un- or under-served communities while ensuring that existing sources are safe, functioning and continuous is a fundamental development objective of our time. But less reliable and manageable water supplies — driven by deteriorating environmental and climatic conditions — threaten our ability to do so. Water security increasingly depends on considering water within its wider hydrological and governance context, from source protection upstream to system management downstream.

Water stress and insecurity are rising globally. Many countries are now forced to grapple with water challenges on multiple fronts, including mounting water scarcity, more frequent droughts, worsening floods, and record-breaking temperatures. Universal access to water and sanitation services also remains beyond reach, especially in low-income countries where poverty and vulnerability are most acute.

One in three people — over 2.2 billion people — still do not have access to safe drinking water, while more than half the global population lacks adequate sanitation services. Rural communities are lagging behind their urban counterparts, with many experiencing water shortages for at least one month of the year — a danger expected to grow exponentially by 2050. At the same time, droughts have increased by 29% since 2000 and flooding disasters by 134%, even damaging vital water infrastructure.

When water flows are stable and consistent, freshwater springs and communal water points are critical lifelines, especially in hard-to-reach areas and regions where rain is highly seasonal or chronically sparse. Yet, many springs, wells and boreholes are seeing reduced yields, dropping volumes, and low functionality. Water points and systems that once could be relied on are failing. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa as many as 70% of rural water schemes have become fully or intermittently non-functional. Although often triggered by poor construction, operation, and maintenance, the situation is being exacerbated by growing instances of water sources running dry. When this occurs, people are forced to rely on unprotected sources, with grave consequences on health and wellbeing, especially for children.

The continuity of water — known as water source sustainability — is an increasingly pressing issue but one that has received insufficient attention, especially in the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) sector. While new water development goes on, the very source waters that feed our water supply systems are becoming ever more degraded or depleted. And without these supplies at origin, there is no safe access.

Countering this impending water crisis requires protecting water where it first originates, better managing water-related hazards and ensuring there’s enough water for human needs as well as for economic and ecological purposes.

Hydrology Disrupted

In the prevailing narrative, access to water is hindered by poor management, a lack of financing and more recently, climate change. In other words, systemic inadequacies and underfunding of water services, more erratic and extreme weather, and surging populations and production driving over-abstraction and competition with household water. However, while there are many factors that challenge water service delivery, a key underlying issue is often not well-captured or discussed — one that hugely affects water source sustainability: the degradation of the natural environment.

Growing human pressures on ecosystems and landscapes are both driving climatic fluctuations and disrupting eco-hydrological processes that provide clean, reliable sources of water. Higher temperatures are increasing evaporation which modifies rain patterns. In many places, this is leading to more irregular and unusually low rainfall, causing longer dry spells, while elsewhere to more intense precipitation, triggering deluge.

What more, vegetation plays a significant role in how rain interacts with landscapes to generate and replenish source waters. Forests, for example, release water into the atmosphere and improve soil filtration capacities.

But human activity is eroding the Earth’s green cover, hugely harming the natural cycling of water. Changes in land cover and use are affecting where water is stored, how it moves and how clean it is. Deforestation, converting grassland into cropland, intensive farming and livestock rearing, and rapid urbanization are all contributing to the problem.

As a result, water flows worldwide are being altered. So much so that rivers have experienced rapid decline and over 50% of global catchment areas now display deviations from normal conditions, with the majority exhibiting drier conditions.

The threat to water services — the points, schemes, and networks that bring water to people — is huge, and the consequences dire, including rising costs for drilling deeper and deeper boreholes or replacing structures that have been lost.

The water cycle: water evaporates from the earth’s surface and rises into the atmosphere where it cools and condenses to form clouds, to then fall again as precipitation. When on the surface, rainwater moves through watersheds, flowing as runoff across land or streamflow in rivers, and through the ground into aquifers. This cycling of water to and from the atmosphere and within landscapes determines weather patterns around the world and the availability and adequacy of water resources in a given area.

Despite this, the WASH sector has given insufficient consideration to the broader natural systems — the hydrology, catchments, and source waters — that underlie water provision, placing emphasis instead on infrastructural and technical solutions (mainly the extraction, storage, distribution, and treatment of water). But the problem is no longer technological or financial nor climatic alone. We can no longer assume that digging and drilling will result in water. Environmental and climatic shifts are now impeding healthy hydrological functions, creating ever more challenges for water service delivery.

Digging Deeper: How Environmental Degradation Impacts Water Supplies and Undermines Service Delivery

But how, exactly, does environmental degradation — especially watershed degradation — impact water supplies and reduce service levels?

A watershed (or catchment or basin, depending on size) is a land area that drains to the same body of water. It’s an interconnected system: watersheds store, transport, and release water by way of their geological and hydrological characteristics, thereby deeply connecting water sources and supplies to ecological and landscape conditions.

When healthy, watersheds provide many valuable services we often take for granted, including clean water, fertile soils, erosion control, flood protection and nutrient movement. Watersheds also support good physical and chemical water properties. Key aspects of a healthy watershed can include intact headwaters and good vegetation cover.

But when a landscape is disturbed, the ecology of a watershed changes, impacting water’s ebbs and flows and good hydrological functioning. Degraded lands are characterized by barren soils which reduce soil water absorbency and cause greater erosion, runoff, and sedimentation — factors that can significantly damage water supplies and conditions downstream. Surface waters and shallow groundwater — often key sources of domestic water — are particularly vulnerable.

These dynamics impact the three critical aspects of water: quantity, quality and flow regulation:

1) Water Quantity (Availability)

Landscapes help control the cycling of water — essentially, determining what happens to rain when it falls to earth. Under natural conditions, some rainfall runs off the land surface, while most penetrates and moistens soils. It then continues to move downward by gravity beneath the soil through the processes of infiltration and percolation. Rainwater is eventually stored underground in aquifers. Finally, some of the water reemerges on the surface, discharging through seeps, springs and streams. Surface and ground waters are replenished from this rainfall and its runoff.

Water in landscapes: Land, trees, vegetation, and water interact to impact water availability up and downstream.

Infiltration and percolation depend on the amount, duration and intensity of precipitation and on land’s physical characteristics. Vegetated watersheds protect the top layers of soil, better manage rainfall and help ensure consistent supplies of water year-round. In fact, over two-thirds of drinking water worldwide is provided by forested watersheds.

As landscapes are stripped of vegetation, however, these processes are weakened: soils become unstable and unable to soak any or adequate rainfall. This causes rain to gush off the land, generating soil erosion and excess runoff along its path. Runoff, although important to replenishment functions, is escalated by impervious surfaces and, ironically, even too much rain in a short time over a degraded area can impede infiltration. Consequently, the area where natural infiltration occurs is reduced, causing less rain to seep underground. As a result, aquifers are not being recharged, stream flows decrease, and groundwater tables fall. This causes water yields at springs, boreholes and wells to shrink or stop, hindering service levels.

 2) Water Quality

Trees and vegetative cover are also important to water quality. Eroding lands contribute to the formation of sediment which detaches from soils and blends with runoff. Some sedimentation is very natural, but excessive sediment can significantly damage ambient water. Sediment picks up pollutants and other impurities, including nutrients from fertilizers, pesticides, microbes from waste and metals from industrial activity. Runoff from irrigated farmlands, for example, can carry nitrogen and phosphorus, which can eventually lead to depleted oxygen, dead zones and harmful algal blooms in water bodies. Such impurities, along with increased turbidity, result in dirtier water and higher treatment costs. Land and watershed degradation have already impacted drinking water for more than 700 million people, costing cities globally $5.4 billion each year in treatment. Poor land management practices can thus both decay soils on-site and worsen pollutant load downstream.

In contrast, natural ecosystems like forests, grasslands and wetlands act as important buffers against sedimentation. Strong roots anchor soil to the ground while vegetation absorbs sediment, reducing what would otherwise reach streams, rivers and lakes. These ecosystems also filter contaminants, straining and removing them from water. Vegetative barriers help buffer people and infrastructure from dangerous overflows and reduce the debris entering catchment areas. This can cut costs and boost water cleanliness with benefits for household wellbeing.

Of course, water quality is impacted by other factors as well: municipal waste and sewage, improper treatment and disposal of industrial wastewater, inadequate sanitation and hygiene practices and so on. But it is important to also understand how water quality is affected by environmental degradation via sediment transport.

3) Water Flow (Regulation)

Lastly, landscapes also help regulate water flows by controlling how, and how quickly, rainwater is captured and released. Landscapes act as natural sponges: the canopy and roots of trees slow heavy rainfall, allowing it to move onward more gradually. Vegetation helps compact soils, braking excessive stormwater and better controlling how water moves through a landscape. Trees along riparian areas, for example, can reduce the potential and severity of surging events. In so doing, they reduce water’s momentum and, with it, the risk of flooding. Instead, when soils are dry, the detrimental effects of runoff are intensified. Flash floods can directly damage water and sanitation infrastructure while spreading disease and threatening livelihoods and life.

Furthermore, as excess runoff moves silt-laden water downstream, layers of sediment progressively settle on reservoir floors. This sediment can prevent water from flowing smoothly, causes wear and tear, and clogs canals. And rapid sediment buildup can reduce the storage capacity and lifespan of water structures, seriously impacting drinking water supply, irrigation, and hydropower production. Indeed, sediment deposition is escalating the need for reservoir dredging and affecting dam safety worldwide — a risk increasing with more extreme weather.

Advancing Water Security Needs More Holistic Thinking

Although the situation appears dire, there are solutions.

Confronting today’s water challenges requires thinking beyond traditional water infrastructure interventions to how climate change and environmental degradation are impacting source waters — with a vision for long term continuity. This warrants asking: Where does the water for WASH access come from? What are the risks to that water source?

Drinking water services rest on the readiness and reliability of good quality water. A number of factors come to play, including mechanical determinants, financing and social elements, but also geography and hydrology. First and foremost, water services depend on the availability of freshwater and the conditions of the broader catchment where they are found. The loss of natural habitats and deteriorating landscapes are undermining WASH efforts — with significant implications for the sector. Costs are mounting and uncertainty is rising. Notwithstanding, it remains challenging to elevate water resources management (WRM) and the environmental conservation agenda as important aspects of water service delivery.

Healthy watersheds help sustain stable supplies of freshwater and counter water-related shocks. Better managing and rehabilitating landscapes can help preserve source waters and remove stressors while maintaining or reclaiming good watershed functions. This restorative approach — known as watershed management, landscape restoration, or similar terms — involves implementing a range of sustainable land, forest, soil and water conservation measures to revegetate a degraded site and recover soil health. Many measures are nature-based — making them less costly than built infrastructure — and most reflect actions to collect and slow down rainwater while stabilizing soils. This includes planting trees and grasses, terracing croplands and hillsides, and adopting more sustainable (soil-friendly) farming and grazing practices, such as no till, cover cropping and agroforestry.

Terraced farmlands and check dams in Minzir 01 Micro-watershed, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. These measures help prevent erosion while allowing water to better reach crops. Photo by Francesca Battistelli / WRI. 

Whether on cropped or mountain areas, in urban settings or along stream channels, the idea is to apply measures that help decrease erosion, runoff and sedimentation. Doing so can help restore local hydrology and retain cleaner water in the wider catchment. In communities around the world, these kinds of projects have proven to be successful:

• In India’s Uttarakhand state, for example, community-driven spring restoration efforts helped revive 600 freshwater mountain springs, key sources of community drinking water. Digging contour trenches, percolation pits, and ponds helped slow runoff, channel rainwater into the soil and refill the natural springs.
• In Uganda’s Kamwenge District, degraded wetlands were restored back to their original state which helped increase the water-holding and infiltrating capacities of soils and recharged local groundwater reserves.
• In Pembamoto, Tanzania, farmers dug half-moon shaped soil bunds to capture rainwater, thus re-saturating soils, revitalizing the landscape and stopping floodwaters. This practice is also common in the West African Sahel as a strategy for water retention in arid areas. As the land regenerates, on-site soil moisture improves and crops better resist dry conditions. Satellite images have revealed the improvements in vegetation cover over time.

While delivering water benefits, these interventions offer additional co-benefits, including increased agricultural productivity, biodiversity protection and carbon sequestration. As trees grow and soil fertility returns, communities can reap the benefits of better crop yields, local fruit and fodder, and household income — creating material incentives needed to keep investing in watershed health.

Sustainable land and watershed management have been proven to spur water and food security, uphold business operations, create jobs and reduce poverty, with positive impact on livelihoods, nature and climate resilience. And in providing more plentiful, clean, and timely water, improvements in sanitation and health can be expected.

Sustainable watershed management practices and their water benefits 

Benefit Water quantity Water quality Regulated flow ObjectivesReduce runoff/erosion; improve soil moisture and infiltration; increase supply Reduce sedimentation; filter pollutants; reduce contaminants Flood and landslide prevention; protect habitats and infrastructure Interventions Tree planting (reforestation, afforestation) ✓ ✓ ✓ Revegetation (grass/buffer/filter strips, direct seeding, streambank and riparian restoration) ✓ ✓ ✓ Forest conservation ✓ ✓ ✓ Wetland protection, rehabilitation, or construction ✓ ✓ ✓ Area exclosures (prevention of overgrazing) ✓  ✓ Bunds (stone, soil) ✓  ✓ Terracing ✓   Check dams ✓  ✓ Trenching ✓  ✓ Percolation pits ✓  ✓ Water harvesting (rainwater capture, half-moons, contours, etc.) ✓  ✓ Sustainable and regenerative agriculture (e.g., crop rotation, no till, inter-cropping, alley cropping, contour farming, integrated pest management, improved grazing) ✓ ✓ ✓ Agroforestry (integrating trees and crops) ✓ ✓ ✓ Silvopasture (integrating trees and grazing) ✓ ✓ ✓ Concurrent sanitation activities  ✓  

Of course, boreholes, wells and piped networks are not always adequately constructed or managed. This can cause huge problems with reliability and ultimately access, and these issues cannot be downplayed. Poor operation and maintenance reduce water point performance, often causing failure. Infrastructure, technical execution and capital maintenance remain fundamental aspects of water service delivery. But these (the “hardware” issues) are not sufficient now. In many places, the water sources connected to these structures are strained or depleted. This is resulting in unsuccessful drilling rates and diminished functionality, leading to the growing abandonment of water supply schemes.

And even where there is a physical abundance of water, inefficient and inequitable governance can exacerbate water insecurity.

The time has come to think beyond the borehole and upstream of a water scheme to the wider catchment context. Healthy watersheds should be seen as integral elements of a sustainable and resilient water supply system. Doing so means paying attention to catchment dynamics that help provide, filter and regulate water, planning and “proofing” for climate change, and addressing the human drivers of water risk and ecological degradation.

Fortunately, there is growing recognition of the importance of better linking freshwater conservation with WASH through greater regard for water governance issues, climate resilience and environmental health. Interventions in watershed protection alongside more conventional water supply development can also help preserve surface and ground waters for beneficial use, helping safeguard those investments over time. This strengthens the overall water supply context, and — by extension — the context for WASH more broadly.

At the same time, it is vital to enhance the regulations, institutions and capacities of authorities and communities responsible for managing water. Operation and maintenance, reducing leakage, water safety planning, and professionalized service provision have all become increasingly urgent under growing hydrological uncertainty. Water is also a cross-sectoral issue which requires multi-level dialogue, planning and implementation. Integrated WRM approaches can enable a more effective approach to water management, helping ensure resources are used soundly, observing ecological limits and sustainable yield, prioritizing household needs, and enhancing climate-resilient WASH and livelihoods. Fostering context-specific solutions also means ensuring local actors be part of the response. Only this way can we advance systemic change.

These are priority themes in a project in Ethiopia’s Tana Subbasin, led by WRI in partnership with the Millennium Water Alliance, WaterAid, and local government institutions, and funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Its key premise: the health of watersheds has a huge impact on water supplies and needs to be considered in water planning and programming.

WRM and WASH cannot succeed in isolation. Investments in water access must account for environmental and climatic factors that increasingly affect source sustainability. Not doing so will undermine long-term WASH efforts. Solutions to systemic inadequacies can be found in strategies, partnerships and funding that help advance more holistic “systems thinking” approaches that look from source to tap. WASH actors should move past conventional methods and step up programming to address water continuity and underlying source water issues. Done well, interventions at the intersection of WRM, WASH and climate adaptation can better advance water security together with environmental, wellbeing and livelihood objectives — forging more resilient water systems and communities.

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• Water Security

Authors Francesca Battistelli

Most Countries Missed a Chance to Invest in Climate Resilience During COVID Recovery. But the Sooner They Start, the Better shannon.paton@… Wed, 01/22/2025 - 16:22

While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted livelihoods and triggered a global economic crisis, the unprecedented scale of recovery funding approved by governments also presented an opportunity to rethink business as usual. International institutions from the UN to the World Bank encouraged governments — particularly in poorer countries that are especially vulnerable to climate impacts — to leverage their recovery packages to “build back better” by investing in climate-resilient societies and economies.

Co-managed by WRI, the Global Commission on Adaptation similarly called for countries to align their economic recovery packages with, and accelerate the achievement of, longer-term climate objectives. This is because returns on certain investments in climate adaptation — such as early warning systems, resilient infrastructure and water resources management — far outweigh the costs and can yield economic, social and environmental benefits even when extreme events don’t materialize.

So, how did countries respond? Research produced by WRI and the Global Resilience Partnership found that only a handful of countries capitalized on this opportunity. Moreover, wealthier and less-vulnerable countries were more likely to pursue adaptation action than low- and middle-income countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis — a paradox that persists today.

The COVID-19 pandemic is now largely behind us, but climate risks and the need for adaptation are only growing. As we look ahead, knowing whether and how countries invested in resilience during a time of unprecedented public spending can offer valuable insights for closing the adaptation gap.

What We Found

We reviewed COVID-19 recovery measures approved from 2020-2021 by 67 countries, representing a range of geographies and income levels. We found that they largely failed to integrate climate adaptation and resilience into their economic recovery plans and investments. Specifically, our analysis revealed:

1) The need for greater political awareness and leadership

Only 16 countries (24%) of those we analyzed pursued a climate-resilient recovery by defining a high-level goal or commitment to climate adaptation and resilience, approving concrete actions that explicitly responded to specific physical climate risks (e.g., climate-risk-responsive measures), or both. These climate-risk-responsive measures could take the form of direct investments in adaptation, or the adoption of fiscal, monetary or other policy actions.

Among the countries that approved such measures, most approved investments or policies to address water resources management, disaster prevention, infrastructure and nature-based solutions (see the map below).

Countries that articulated high-level commitments were more likely to take concrete adaptation action — such as approving policies or investments to reduce or manage specific climate risks — than those without overarching climate resilience goals. For example, Italy’s National Recovery Plan aimed to improve the country’s climate resilience by protecting nature and biodiversity and included investments in flood management. This underscores the need to raise political awareness about the economic and social damages associated with climate change and the benefits of investing in adaptation and resilience.

2) A paradox of vulnerability and income

Our study found that higher-income, less climate-vulnerable countries were more likely to take concrete adaptation action during their COVID-19 recoveries than lower-income, more vulnerable countries. While 80% of high-income countries and all of the upper-middle income countries that demonstrated a risk-responsive recovery did so through direct investments in climate adaptation, only 40% of lower-middle-income countries did so (see the figure below). This tracks with trends in overall COVID-19 recovery spending: higher-income countries spent a higher share of their GDP to manage the impacts and recover from the pandemic as compared to other country income groups.

Overall, the least vulnerable countries in our analysis were 3 times more likely to take adaptation action than the most vulnerable countries. G20 countries, which represent about 85% of global GDP, were twice as likely to have responded to physical climate risks through their recovery measures as members of the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) — a group of mostly middle-income countries representing those economies most vulnerable to climate change.

Kenya and Vanuatu, both lower-middle-income countries, were the only “most vulnerable” countries found to have taken adaptation action. Kenya invested US$94 million in flood mitigation measures, while Vanuatu included the improved resilience of vulnerable groups to cyclones as a key policy outcome of its recovery framework.

3) Too little focus on addressing inequities

Most countries’ COVID-19 recoveries targeted groups that were particularly vulnerable to the social and economic impacts of the pandemic. However, recovery measures that aimed to reduce or manage physical climate risks were generally broad, without consideration for the unique vulnerabilities of specific groups.

There were a few notable exceptions. Canada’s A Healthy Environment and A Healthy Economy plan committed to better enabling Indigenous climate leadership, including investing over US$770 million to support Indigenous-led projects and improving Indigenous peoples’ access to the country’s Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund. Vanuatu’s Recovery Strategy 2020-2023 aimed to leverage traditional food preservation and building practices to improve the disaster preparedness and response of vulnerable groups, including women and elderly people.

More of these targeted efforts are needed around the world. Building climate resilience can help address social inequities, since areas with higher climate vulnerability are associated with residents who are also more susceptible to economic shocks. Following the Principles for Locally Led Adaptation could better ensure that people facing marginalization play a leading role in the design and implementation of adaptation actions that address the root causes of their climate vulnerabilities.

With Recovery Funding in the Rearview, What’s Needed Now to Accelerate Adaptation?

While the surge in government spending during COVID recovery is now a thing of the past, investments in climate resilience cannot wait. The longer countries delay in adapting to climate change, the more extensive the damages will be, and the more expensive adaptation will become.

On the heels of another UN climate summit (COP29) that failed to match international climate finance commitments to the needs of developing countries, governments, especially of vulnerable countries, and international institutions must work together to accelerate adaptation investment. This includes:

• Strengthening economic and financial analyses of climate risks. Governments — even in highly vulnerable countries — may lack the motivation to act without an improved understanding of the economic, social and environmental risks of climate change. Ministries of finance, planning and economy are responsible for fiscal and financial decision-making that shapes the economic trajectory of their countries. These ministries should apply systematic climate risk screening tools and integrate physical climate risks into macro-economic modelling to better understand the need for, and prioritize, adaptation investments. However, both depend on the improved availability and quality of required data, for which national bureaus or institutes of statistics play a key role.
• Mainstreaming climate adaptation and resilience into regular planning and budgeting processes. Governments should seek to elevate climate resilience within national development plans and frameworks as an overarching outcome or key priority; this can help improve the alignment of adaptation and development goals across sectors in support of a whole-of-economy response to climate change. Earmarking a required percentage of national budgets for adaptation investments and developing climate budget tagging (CBT) frameworks could also help to ensure steady funding for building climate resilience in vulnerable countries and improve accountability. Indonesia’s development and application of its own CBT process to monitor and track climate-related public spending, for example, increased allocations to climate adaptation by an estimated US$3.5 billion from 2016 to 2019.
• Establishing pipelines for climate adaptation and resilience projects. Vulnerable developing countries will need technical support to translate national adaptation priorities into evidence-based adaptation programs that address the root causes of climate vulnerability and can be leveraged to access available domestic and international finance.
• Scaling concessional finance and debt relief. Many low- and middle-income countries will require both concessional finance and debt relief to invest in climate adaptation without increasing already high debt burdens. Development finance institutions must increase available international concessional climate finance by at least 5 times to achieve the Paris Agreement goals by 2030. This is particularly true for multilateral environment and climate funds, which collectively represented a mere 5% of concessional climate finance provided from 2018 to 2022.

The need for investment in climate adaptation continues to grow as climate impacts escalate. And the economic and social costs of inaction are only rising. The sooner countries prepare for a future we know will be more volatile, the better off they and their citizens will be.

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• Climate Adaptation and Resilience
• Resilience and Adaptation Mainstreaming Program (RAMP)
• Adaptation Finance and Investment
• Coronavirus Recovery

Authors Bradley Kratzer Carter Brandon

STATEMENT: President Trump Pledges to Roll Back Climate Policies but Clean Energy Momentum Continues alison.cinnamo… Mon, 01/20/2025 - 13:25

WASHINGTON (January 20, 2025) — Today the United States inaugurated Donald Trump the 47th President of the United States. President Trump’s first actions included withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement and pledging to roll back executive orders and other Biden administration policies. 

Following is a statement from Debbie Weyl, WRI US Acting Director:

“On his first day back in the White House, President Trump is trying to turn back the clock on America’s clean energy leadership at the expense of American people and their health. If realized, President Trump’s actions would sacrifice the United States’ competitiveness globally, raise energy prices for American families, and pollute our air. Pledging to roll back climate policies that have created more than 400,000 good-paying American jobs will only hurt workers and our economy. 

“Despite President Trump’s attempts to shatter progress on climate change, a band of governors, mayors and other leaders are committed to stand their ground and enact low-carbon policies that cut costs, create jobs and build cleaner communities. The clean energy revolution will continue regardless of who is in the White House.”
 

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STATEMENT: Paris Agreement Withdrawal Erodes America’s Standing in the World alison.cinnamo… Mon, 01/20/2025 - 13:09

WASHINGTON (January 20, 2025) — On his first day in office, President Donald Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. 

Following is a statement by Ani Dasgupta, President and CEO, World Resources Institute:

“The Paris Agreement remains as essential as ever. UN climate negotiations are the only platform where every nation has a voice on one of the most pressing challenges of our time. Whether it’s to tackle the catastrophic climate impacts they face or tap into rapidly growing green technologies, countries recognize the critical value of this international process.  That’s why I’m confident that virtually all nations will stay committed to the Paris Agreement despite the United States’ departure. 

“Every year, far too many US communities are bombarded with deadly wildfires, floods and hurricanes that know no borders. At the same time, the transition to a low-carbon economy is already underway. Walking away from the Paris Agreement won’t protect Americans from climate impacts, but it will hand China and the European Union a competitive edge in the booming clean energy economy and lead to fewer opportunities for American workers.  

“It simply makes no sense for the United States to voluntarily give up political influence and pass up opportunities to shape the exploding green energy market. Sitting on the sidelines also means the United States will have fewer levers to hold other major economies accountable for living up to their commitments.

“While the US administration retreats, states, cities and businesses across the U.S. will continue driving climate action forward. And clean energy incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act will continue to be an economic boon for communities nationwide thanks to strong support from many Republicans and Democrats alike. Make no mistake, America will still be very much in the global fight against climate change.

“We are in a generational struggle to move the world to a safer place. Today’s abdication of responsibility by President Trump will not derail the world from this fight.”
 

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Foreign Investors Could Stall Coal Plant Closures in Asia margaret.overh… Fri, 01/17/2025 - 10:00

Some countries are making bold plans to eliminate coal. Recently, Indonesia's president announced that the country will retire all coal and other fossil fuel plants by 2040. This tracks with projections that say coal power — the most polluting fuel source — must be completely phased out by 2040 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

But governments aren't the only ones with a say in the matter.

In developing countries, coal plants are often financed by foreign investors. To attract funds for these costly projects, host governments sign contracts promising investors lucrative returns for years to come. Ending coal power by 2040 would mean shuttering many such plants years or decades ahead of schedule, conflicting with these promises.

Common wisdom holds that investors are most at risk in this scenario — that they will be forced to divest from or repurpose power plants to avoid further losses as the world moves away from coal. But new research from WRI finds that a much bigger share of the burden could fall on host governments.

We examined dozens of coal plant contracts and found that all of them require host governments to compensate investors, especially foreign ones, for actions that would drive early plant closures — creating a major disincentive for shifting to cleaner energy.

But these countries are not without options. There are viable pathways to keep rapid coal phase-out in reach if host governments, investors and other stakeholders come to the table to negotiate.

How Contracts Can Lock in Coal Power

Investment contracts for power plants are not unusual. The most common varieties include Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) — long-term contracts where an off-taker, such as a utility company, commits to purchase energy at an agreed price — and Government Support Agreements (GSAs), in which host country governments provide investors with guarantees or other explicit support.

These contracts serve an important purpose. By offering predictable, stable returns, they've helped attract much-needed foreign investment to meet rising energy demand in developing countries. But where contracts are used to attract fossil fuel investment, they've also hampered governments looking to launch more ambitious climate action.

The problem is especially thorny in Asia, where many nations still rely heavily on coal power. We analyzed investment contracts in Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam, where 40%-70% of coal plants are backed by foreign investors. These countries' fleets are also very young. In Indonesia and Vietnam, the average coal plant age is under eleven years; in Pakistan, it's just four. Considering that the typical lifespan of a coal plant is around 50 years, many of these plants will need to be shut down 10-30 years ahead of schedule to align with global climate goals.

Piles of coal waiting to be burned at the Van Phong power plant in Vietnam. Vietnam, Pakistan, Indonesia and other countries face challenges closing coal plants early when they're financed under contracts with foreign investors. Photo by Pham Hung/iStock

In theory, governments have a range of policy options to drive early coal retirement. They can mandate plant closures, enact more rigorous environmental standards, tax power plant emissions or reduce operation hours. In reality, our study finds that any of these policy actions could trigger terms in a PPA, GSA or other project contract that would require the government to compensate investors for their revenue losses.

For example, if Pakistan's government plans to impose a national carbon tax, it would have to reimburse a coal project company for the increase in operation costs. If a plant is forced to close early, governments may have to pay back shareholders, outstanding project debts and lost future equity returns.

The actual sums involved will be difficult to calculate, but it's clear the cost to compensate investors could be immense. The estimated remaining value of existing coal plants in Indonesia amounts to nearly $15 billion. And the total amount would be higher still when future returns and unpaid interest are added in.

Host countries navigating budgets with limited fiscal space generally can't afford such upfront costs. And they likely won't attempt to break contracts outright, as these are backed by powerful international courts for settling disputes between investors and states. Appeals to these courts are lengthy — demanding resources countries may not have — and can result in massive settlements that strain governments and their standing with international investors.

Going Back to the Negotiating Table

To accelerate coal power phase out, governments will need to renegotiate these contracts to make early plant closures financially feasible. This is largely untrodden territory, but there are some cases already in development that can illuminate the path forward. The key principles for renegotiation are to involve everyone, to ask everyone to compromise, and to start early.

Who will be at the table?

The first principle is to involve all stakeholders. Host country governments should be in a leading role; however, they will need support from multilateral development banks (MDBs), home countries of foreign investors, and other international investors to successfully renegotiate coal plant contracts.

Who will be on the other side of the table? Data shows that parties from China, Japan and Korea account for the largest foreign coal investments in South and Southeast Asia. State-run banks such as the Export-Import Bank of China and Japan Bank for International Cooperation are top players. Behind these are the privately-owned commercial institutions (such as Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation).

It's worth noting that development banks from China, Japan and Korea have already stopped lending for new coal projects abroad, but they were some of the last to do so. Ending further lending for new coal projects should be a baseline for financial institutions worldwide.

What can parties offer one another?

Researchers and practitioners have discussed some mechanisms for financing early retirement. A coal plant could be refinanced with a new loan at a lower interest rate, purchased by a new entity at a lower cost equity, or financed by "transition credits" (generated from the early retirement). Closing a plant early entails a loss of revenue given that the plant will not be used to the end of its life. Under all these scenarios, every stakeholder needs to be willing to take a haircut or compromise for the negotiation to succeed.

In Indonesia, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and a local independent power producer agreed to a framework to retire the Cirebon-1 coal plant early. Japan and Germany provided grants and highly concessional funding through ADB, which will also help leverage finance from commercial creditors. With a total refinancing package worth an estimated $325 million, the coal plant will be retired by the end of 2035 — five years before Indonesia's coal phaseout target and seven years before the end of its useful life. This deal allows investors to make back their investment, as ADB helped ensure that the financing package will not result in any loss or gain in present value for the coal plant owners. At the same time, it reduces emissions and encourages investors to redeploy capital towards clean energy.

Another example is a coal plant in Chile that was retired early with the help of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The bank provided a loan to the original investor of the coal plant, Engie Energia Chile, to finance new renewable energy development — but the interest rate on the loan was tied to phasing down emissions from a specific coal plant. This helped retire the coal plant early while also bringing cleaner replacement capacity online.

A wind farm near Coquimbo, Chile. One innovative coal retirement program in Chile offered a power plant investor low interest rates on new renewable energy development in exchange for reducing coal plant emissions. Photo by Manuel Munoz Acuna/iStock What else could help enable the shift?

Developing and finalizing these specific plans will take time, and many challenges must be addressed — not just the legal ones we've detailed. But we know there could be several scenarios in which:

• Host country governments set clear targets to retire coal power stations early, aligned with global climate goals and national action plans, and prepare for early coal retirement on the regulatory front. They'd recognize the legal obligation under current contracts but negotiate to reduce the compensation owed to investors — perhaps by offering them other investment opportunities, such as expedited permits for converting coal plants to renewable energy.
• Companies and their backers foresee changes in policy and regulation and could waive certain compensation in exchange for more sustainable opportunities. This is especially relevant in cases where coal power plants already aren't generating expected investment returns due to external factors (such as surging coal prices).
• Governments, from host and home countries, work with development banks to provide monetary incentives — such as lowering the cost of funding for refinancing existing loans — with the criteria that contracts will be shortened to allow for early retirement or repurposing to renewable energy plants.

To scale up early retirement efforts regionally and globally, someone with a dedicated mandate and capacity needs to facilitate. In addition to their role as financiers, MDBs and other development finance institutions can fill this role. As a potential bridge between private finance, government and affected communities, development finance institutions can help engage key stakeholders in an open and timely fashion. They can also provide legal support for contract renegotiations that seek alignment between parties. In the long term, they can help governments develop policies and provide finance to enable broader energy sector reforms.

Moving forward, it is crucial that legal frameworks used for energy investments do not hinder countries from pursuing sustainable development and climate action. Instead, they should encourage foreign investment in low-carbon technologies and a just clean energy transition.

To support this, countries and investors need to jointly assess the impacts of international investment agreements and the dispute settlement mechanisms that cover foreign investment in many countries. These weren't designed with global Sustainable Development Goals and climate targets in mind. Alternative approaches, such as use of risk insurance for investors and state-to-state mechanisms, may be useful. In the long term, a United Nations working group is taking a closer look at a possible reform of investor-state dispute settlement.

With Coal's End Date Fast Approaching, Acting Now Is Key

Governments, especially in Asia's coal-dependent countries, need to start retiring coal plants at a much faster pace than they've done to date. Legal protections for investors present a major hurdle, but one that it's possible to overcome.

The key is to start now. With immediate support for renegotiation and early retirement actions, stakeholders can clear the way for a rapid shift to clean energy in one of the world's most fossil fuel intensive regions — a shift that will affect the whole world's climate future.

To learn more, see WRI's new working paper: Legal Implications of Early Decommissioning: Case Studies of Foreign-Invested Coal Power Plants in Asia

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• Greening China’s Overseas Finance
• Private Sector Finance

Authors Ziyi Ma Guanying Liu Shuang Liu

‘Direct Pay’ Tax Credits Bring Clean Energy and So Much More to US Communities shannon.paton@… Fri, 01/17/2025 - 10:00

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act’s “direct pay” provision offers communities across the country access to clean energy tax credits for the first time. Just two years after it was introduced, direct pay is already helping to bring clean vehicles to city fleets, fund electric vehicle chargers for low-income neighborhoods, provide cost-effective solar power to wastewater plants, and help schools upgrade outdated and inefficient HVAC systems.

But clean energy deployment is hardly the only benefit. Projects receiving direct pay credits are creating good-paying jobs, reducing air pollution, cutting energy costs, creating lasting sources of capital for future community projects, and working to increase the U.S. energy supply at a time of record electricity demand growth. These benefits are happening in both large cities and small towns, across red and blue states and districts.

For example, 27 cities alone have claimed an estimated $12.66 million in tax credits for their 2023 projects by working with the Lighthouse Cohort, a partnership between WRI, Lawyers for Good Government, Government Finance Officers Association, Urban Sustainability Director’s Network, Southeast Sustainability Director’s Network and the Electrification Coalition.

Here, we demystify the Inflation Reduction Act’s direct pay provision and analyze some of its emerging benefits.

Solar panels on a church rooftop in Pasadena, California. The Inflation Reduction Act's "direct pay" provision allows local governments, non-profits and other tax-exempt entities to access clean energy tax credits for the first time. Photo by Angel DiBilio/Shutterstock What Are the Inflation Reduction Act’s Direct Pay Clean Energy Tax Credits?

Direct pay, also known as “elective pay,” enables tax-exempt entities to qualify for federal clean energy tax credits that are then received as direct cash payments from the IRS.  While federal tax credits for clean energy have been around for decades, they were largely unavailable to tax-exempt organizations like municipal governments and non-profits that did not have tax liability for the credit to apply to. Direct pay “allows tax-exempt entities [...] to receive the same funding for clean energy projects that private industry has been receiving for decades,” said Jillian Blanchard, director of Lawyers for Good Government’s climate change and environmental justice program.

To claim the credits, tax-exempt entities file a tax return with the IRS on qualifying projects or purchases completed or “placed in service” in the previous fiscal year. The credit money is then received as a check or direct deposit. Just like personal tax returns, the money does not have any restrictions or reporting requirements, meaning it could be used for anything from supporting general operations to funding future sustainability projects.  

The program currently allows for 12 clean energy and electrification-related credits for technologies like electric vehicles (EVs), EV charging stations, solar panels, wind turbines and battery storage. Organizations that can claim tax credits through direct pay include religious institutions; school districts; rural electric cooperatives; non-profits; and state, local and tribal governments and their associated agencies, including public power utilities.

The Many Benefits of Using Direct Pay Clean Energy Tax Credits

Just two years in, direct pay is already changing the playing field for eligible organizations.

School districts across the U.S. are claiming direct pay on hundreds of projects, including solar panel installations and electric school buses. One school district in Kentucky received over $793,000 through direct pay on a new geothermal HVAC system.

Non-profit and faith institutions are benefiting as well. With support from direct pay, the Watts-Willowbrook Church of Christ in Compton, Calif., recently installed a 12-kilowatt (kW) rooftop solar system that is expected to save the church $184,033 in energy bills over the next 20 years. Baltimore’s City of Refuge non-profit installed over 100 kW of solar panels and battery energy storage through a direct pay tax credit, allowing it to reinvest its energy bill savings and act as a centralized community services hub during natural disasters.

And direct pay isn’t just for small, local projects. The Oceti Sakowin Power Authority, a joint non-profit corporation composed of seven Sioux tribal nations in South Dakota, is using direct pay to ensure they maintain full ownership and benefits from two massive wind farms totaling 570 megawatts (MW) in capacity. When completed, the project will be one of the largest wind power installations in the United States and will generate enough electricity to power more than160,000 homes per year.

Rural electric co-ops and public power entities are also using direct pay for clean energy. In Massachusetts, a 6.9 MW solar array serving six municipal utilities received $2.34 million in tax credit money through direct pay, reducing electricity costs for utilities and the communities they serve. In December 2024, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, an electric co-operative power supplier serving customers across Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska, announced the construction of a 145 MW and 110 MW solar facility. Tri-State expects to receive 40% of its construction costs back through direct pay.

Pateros, Washington is using solar panels to power its wastewater treatment plant and reservoir, thanks in part to direct pay tax credits. Photo by City of Pateros How Are Local Governments Using Direct Pay for Clean Energy?

With over 90,000 local governments across the U.S., direct pay offers a substantial opportunity for towns, cities and counties nationwide to unlock billions of dollars of funding and long-lasting economic benefits for their communities. Some are already capitalizing on the credits.

In 2023, San Antonio, Texas finalized a deal to procure 13.1 MW of solar across 42 separate sites. Direct pay enabled the city government to move forward with the plan and own all of the solar installations, which are collectively expected to save the city $7-$11 million in energy costs over the next 25 years. The deal also created 15-17 full-time jobs and is expected to reduce heat in city parking lots by installing 23 solar parking canopies.

The Lighthouse Cohort

Many local governments have never filed a tax return or interacted with the IRS before. Recognizing both the enormous potential and complexity facing local governments in accessing direct pay, WRI, in partnership with Lawyers for Good Government, Government Finance Officers Association, Electrification Coalition, Urban Sustainability Directors Network and Southeast Sustainability Directors Network, created the Lighthouse Cohort, a coalition of local governments across the U.S. leading the way in using elective pay. Supported with funding by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Sustainable Cities Fund and Invest in Our Future, Lighthouse Cohort partners have provided direct technical assistance on elective pay to more than 60 local governments. Lighthouse Cohort partners have also provided education and created resources for hundreds of local governments outside of the Lighthouse Cohort.

Jord Wilson, the city administrator and public works supervisor for the town of Pateros, Washington, is just one client the Lighthouse Cohort serves. “We are a small staff with limited time and resources,” he said. “I don’t think we would have been able to navigate [the] direct pay filing process without the assistance of the Lighthouse Cohort.”

Learn more here. 

Through the Lighthouse Cohort, WRI and its partners have worked directly with 27 local governments to date to help them file for tax credits through direct pay. Participants have already or will soon claim at least 840 projects for their 2023 tax years, including 677 EV projects, 113 EV charger projects and 50 solar projects. On average, local governments participating in the Cohort are claiming $308,739 in tax benefits for their 2023 projects.

A few cities using direct pay include:

Pateros, Washington

Located at the meeting of the Methow and Columbia rivers in Central Washington state, Pateros is a small city of 611 people, known for its natural beauty and abundant recreation. It boasts almost 200 days of sunshine a year, making it an ideal location for solar power. The city government aimed to power its reservoir and wastewater treatment plant through solar, but it faced a funding shortfall.

Even with a combination of public and private grants, the city still needed tens of thousands of dollars to cover remaining costs. By using direct pay to file an Investment Tax Credit, as well as claiming a bonus for using solar panels manufactured in Washington state, Pateros received the funding it needed to cover 100% of project costs and maintain ownership over the solar array. The town’s new 53-kW solar system will now directly provide power to its water reservoir and wastewater treatment plant, reducing its energy costs by over 45%.

Buncombe County, North Carolina

Tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains and home to the city of Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina used a direct pay filing for 19 solar projects placed in service in 2023. Spread across schools, county administrative buildings, public safety facilities, a library, and a local community college, these solar panels will reduce operating costs by guaranteeing sustainable, reliable, low-cost energy relative to existing utility bills.  

Direct pay returns are also helping the county manage its response to Hurricane Helene, which displaced thousands of people and caused billions of dollars in damages to Western North Carolina  in September 2024. Since tax credit checks received through elective pay are not earmarked for specific purposes, the over $1 million Buncombe received and helped other organizations claim provided much-needed cash relief.  “Elective pay returns could not come at a better time for the community,” said Jeremiah Leroy, Buncombe County’s director of the office of sustainability. “These are much-needed funds to continue normal operations, much less the recovery effort over the coming years.”

Direct pay is also shaping future disaster response and resiliency efforts. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Buncombe County is piloting battery storage projects to help provide power to critical community facilities during future outages.

“The biggest thing that I think about is how to create opportunities to build back better as a more resilient community,” said Leroy. “And having elective pay will make that...a possibility.”

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia has been a leader in sustainability since 2016, when the city committed to halving municipal emissions by 2030. In 2021, the city’s office of sustainability completed the first version of the Philadelphia Municipal Clean Fleet Plan, laying out a strategy to shift the city’s 6,300 vehicle fleet to clean and electric vehicles.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s direct pay provision enabled access to the recently introduced Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit, which allows qualifying entities to receive up to $7,500 for every light-duty battery-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle they purchase. The city qualified for just over $1 million in tax credits on the more than130 battery electric vehicles they purchased in 2023. These vehicles will help Philadelphia avoid around 426 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year, equivalent to burning almost 500,000 pounds of coal or charging 34 million smartphones.

Dan Gasiewski, Philadelphia’s chief grants officer, noted that funds will bolster city operations and sustainability initiatives.

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Within the Appalachian Mountains on the border with Georgia, Chattanooga, Tennessee has a long history of industry, innovation and sustainability.. In the spirit of its longstanding work to reduce air pollution and promote clean transportation, Chattanooga filed for direct pay returns on five new electric vehicle charging stations, all of which are located in low- to moderate-income communities in the city.  

"The elective pay credits offset the cost of our elective vehicle charging stations, allowing our resources to stretch further,” said Ken Howell, the city’s director of fleet management. “Four of our current EV stations are publicly accessible and all stations will be utilized by our fleet during the light-duty EV transition. The city is continuing to build out our EV charging network; these tax credits will be crucial in that construction and ultimately offset our vehicle reliance on diesel and gasoline."

Direct Pay Is a Critical Resource for US Communities

Thanks to direct pay, cities, school districts, rural electric co-ops, religious institutions, public power utilities, and other tax-exempt organizations across all regions of the U.S. can now receive the full value of incentives for undertaking clean energy and electrification projects. These incentives are being directly re-invested into communities, while at the same time enabling larger and more impactful projects that decrease emissions, create jobs, and provide enough power to meet skyrocketing energy demand.

However, direct pay and clean energy tax credits face an uncertain future. Incoming President Donald Trump, who takes office this month, has long criticized clean energy and publicly stated his intention to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. Some Congressional Republicans have also signaled interest in changing or rescinding clean energy tax credits, though this would require passing new legislation. At the same time, many Republican districts across the country have seen enormous levels of investment, job creation, and benefits because of the Inflation Reduction Act’s investments. Without provisions such as direct pay, communities and the institutions that serve them will be stuck with higher costs and fewer opportunities. That’s why 18 Republican Congressmembers have already voiced their opposition to repealing clean energy tax credits.

“The economic benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act are being felt across the country,” Blanchard said. “If any future administration attempts to remove these [...] credits, it will cause significant economic and environmental impacts across the political divide, particularly in rural districts.”

As a growing number of examples show, investments in the clean energy economy benefit everyone. Through clean energy tax credits and direct pay, the U.S. can be the world’s lighthouse, illuminating the path toward a bright, clean and resilient energy future.

EDITOR'S NOTE, 1/23/25: A previous version of this article stated that a Kentucky school district received $739,000 through direct pay. It actually received $793,000. We regret the error and have corrected it. 

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• Maximizing Local Adoption of Inflation Reduction Act Clean Energy Incentives
• Local and State Clean Energy Programs

Authors Ian Goldsmith Ryan Whittemore Kat Carroll

Updated Tool Can Help US Communities Include Forests and Trees in GHG Inventories ciara.regan@wri.org Wed, 01/15/2025 - 16:45

Forests and trees play a critical role in carbon sequestration while providing other benefits to communities, including improving air quality, regulating hydrological processes, reducing energy costs and promoting well-being. Accurate monitoring of these resources over time may enable communities to make better land management decisions that benefit both climate and people simultaneously.

Many communities in the U.S. are developing Climate Action Plans (CAPs) to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. While many CAPs focus on the energy, transportation and waste sectors, most do not consider the role forests and trees play in the fight against climate change. One reason is that planners have lacked the data and clear guidance needed to include them in GHG inventories, on which CAPs are based.

To address this gap, experts from WRI, the Woodwell Climate Research Center, and ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI USA) published guidance for ICLEI USA’s U.S. Community Protocol as well as the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories. These frameworks outline how to estimate emissions from forest and tree cover loss within communities, as well as carbon absorbed by forests and trees that are maintained or newly planted by a community.

Introducing the Land Emissions and Removals Navigator (LEARN)

Accompanying this guidance is the Land Emissions and Removals Navigator (LEARN) tool, developed in collaboration with web developer Blue Raster. LEARN is a free online tool with open-source code that integrates national geospatial data sets with methods from the U.S. Community protocol, enabling communities to estimate GHG impacts from changes to forests and tree cover over time.

In just a few clicks, users can derive locally tailored estimates of the annual GHG impacts associated with changes to forests and tree cover in their community over time. After specifying an area and years to analyze, LEARN does the rest by performing automated, spatially explicit analyses of data from the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey, including:

• Land cover change
• Timing and location of forest disturbances like fire, harvest and insect outbreaks
• Loss and gain of tree canopy cover in urban and other non-forested lands
• Carbon stocks within forests of different maturity classes and protection statuses

(Read more about the history and development of the LEARN tool, and read about the data and methodology here.)

Updates in 2022 Expanded LEARN’s Data Coverage

In 2022, the LEARN project team collaborated with the Chesapeake Conservancy to implement a suite of updates. This included land cover change and forest disturbance data updated through the year 2019, as well as high resolution (1-meter) tree canopy change maps for the Chesapeake Bay watershed. These maps span across six eastern states and the District of Columbia and support communities of more than 18 million people.

LEARN had previously performed analysis only on the 30-meter resolution NLCD Tree Canopy product. The introduction of new high-resolution tree canopy data at 1-meter resolution provides 900-times more detail than before for counties and cities along the eastern seaboard, who can now analyze tree canopy change down to the scale of individual land parcels. This update demonstrated the benefits of significantly enhanced analysis capabilities and reinforced calls to extend this data set from regional to national coverage.

Training Cohorts Bring Support Directly to Communities

Following a first successful Forests & Trees Carbon Accounting Cohort Training Session in 2021, in July 2022, the LEARN project team launched a second training cohort to guide 20 communities in implementing the U.S. Community Protocol methods and using the LEARN tool. Participants represented municipal governments, tribes and states from across the country. In 2023, a third cohort was convened to support communities in integrating local, high-resolution data sets into analyses. This cohort also piloted the use of “plantable areas” analyses to help communities estimate potential impacts of tree planting initiatives.

New Updates in 2025 Further Expand LEARN’s Capabilities

In 2025, LEARN has integrated the most up-to-date NLCD data for land cover and tree canopy, spanning 20 years of land cover change (2001-2021) and more than a decade of tree canopy change (2011-2019).

Additionally, higher resolution (30-meter) maps of forest carbon pools and forest characteristics data like forest type and age class from the USFS BIGMAP project replaced the older 250-meter data sets, allowing for more precise calculations of carbon fluxes. Automated analyses now include additional insights on forest maturity, protection status and carbon stocks within maturity and protection groups.

Finally, another new feature allows users to input custom emission and removal factors, enabling users to tailor the tool’s default calculations to specific local conditions.

Next Steps for LEARN and GHG Monitoring for Forests and Trees

The LEARN tool has established itself as a trustworthy and easy-to-use tool to support communities in estimating GHG fluxes from the land sector. LEARN has been added by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to its Technical Assistance Forum Resource Library to help support Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) recipients across the country, and the team plans to introduce the LEARN tool to CPRG grantees in 2025. Building upon growing user engagement, in 2025 LEARN will continue to expand its reach to stakeholders and broader geographic scales. This includes partnering with Crosswalk Labs to integrate land sector GHG flux insights into the Crosswalk platform, further expanding its impacts on climate efforts nationwide.

WRI and partners are continuing to seek input from stakeholders across the U.S. and around the world on how these methods may best be scaled across geographies, governments and technical capacities. In the future, this kind of data will be available for communities around the world, not just in the U.S. — read more here about upcoming developments in monitoring GHGs for forests and land worldwide.

For questions or to learn more, reach out to erin.glen@wri.org.

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• Greenhouse Gas Protocol

Authors Erin Glen Nancy Harris Angela Scafidi

ADVISORY: World Resources Institute’s Stories to Watch 2025 darla.vanhoorn… Wed, 01/15/2025 - 11:51

WASHINGTON (January 15, 2025) – Join WRI’s President and CEO, Ani Dasgupta, on Thursday, January 30, 2025, from 9:00 – 10:30 AM EST / 3:00 – 4:30 PM CET for WRI’s flagship event, Stories to Watch — shedding light on the future of global climate finance.  

Click here to register. 

At COP29 in Baku, world leaders came together around a bold new climate finance goal: How can we support countries in making the critical transition to clean energy while building the resilience and infrastructure needed to withstand the escalating impacts of climate change? They committed to reaching at least $300 billion annually by 2035 — though this is far from enough. 

Join Ani as he presents four stories that break down the key challenges — and potential solutions — to this global effort: What is the money for? Where will the money come from? And what can be done to unlock more money through innovation and efficiency?  

The event will also feature WRI leaders from around the world, sharing real-world examples and strategies to speed up action: 

• Courtnae Bailey (Associate, Adaptation Finance): Adapting to climate change (St. Vincent and the Grenadines).  
• Katie Ross (Senior Director, Climate Action): South Africa’s transition (Komati, South Africa). 
• Melanie Robinson (Global Climate, Economics and Finance Director): Mobilizing $1.3 trillion for developing countries (Nairobi, Kenya). 
• Pawan Mulukutla (Executive Program Director, WRI India): Attracting private capital with public policy (Bengaluru, India).  
• Mirela Sandrini (Interim Country Director, WRI Brasil): Finding innovative ways to finance nature (São Paulo, Brazil). 

WHAT 
Stories to Watch 2025: WRI’s flagship event shedding light on the key challenges and potential solutions for climate finance in the year ahead. 
 
WHO 
Ani Dasgupta is President and CEO of WRI, where he leads efforts to realize the institute’s global vision of a future that benefits people, nature and climate. Dasgupta is a widely recognized authority in the areas of sustainable development, urban design and poverty alleviation. The event will also feature WRI experts from around the world. 

WHEN 
Thursday, January 30, 2025 
9:00 – 10:30 AM EST / 3:00 – 4:30 PM CET 

RSVP 
Click here to register.  
 
The presentation will be in English, with simultaneous interpretation available in French, Portuguese and Spanish. All registrants will receive access to a recording of the event.  

If you have any questions, please reach out to Darla van Hoorn (Media Relations Manager), Darla.vanhoorn@wri.org.
 

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Community Benefits Snapshots: SOO Green Transmission Line Community Engagement and Benefits shannon.paton@… Thu, 01/09/2025 - 13:34 .bullets ul li { font-size: 1.1em !important; } } Highlights

The SOO Green High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Link is a 350-mile interregional underground electricity transmission line built mostly along an existing railroad right of way in Iowa and Illinois. The first of its kind in the United States, the project also aims to create local jobs and construct parallel infrastructure projects identified as priorities by the community; it has already begun giving out good neighbor payments to landowners whose property abuts the railway.

Context

• Project title: SOO Green HVDC Link 
• Location: Iowa and Illinois 
• Sector: Transmission  
• Developer: SOO Green HVDC Link LLC, in collaboration with a wide range of investors and partners including Jingoli Power and Siemens Energy 
• Type of project agreement: None 

About the Project and Involved Stakeholders

SOO Green HVDC Link is an underground 350-mile, 2,100-megawatt (MW), 525-kilovolt (kV) line running from Mason City, Iowa to Yorkville, Illinois. It will connect wind energy generatedin states under MISO jurisdiction with the PJM market. The project primarily utilizes existing transportation rights of way mostly along the Canadian Pacific (CP) corridor, which means that most of the line will be underground on land controlled by railroads and highway authorities, co-located with the railroad right of way. Once completed, the line will be the longest underground HVDC line in the country. As of this writing, the line has secured a franchise — the equivalent of a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) — from the Iowa Utilities Board, as well as municipal franchises from 21 of 24 Iowa municipalities, and is actively engaged in obtaining approval from the final three. In Illinois, SOO Green will build the line without a CPCN as SOO Green is a merchant project that is not seeking eminent domain authority from the state. The project is expected to become operational in the early 2030s.

Engagement

SOO Green’s landowner engagement began in the mid-2000s when it initiated talks with what was then the CP railroad to build an overhead transmission line within the company’s rights of way. Initially, this idea was a non-starter with CP because the proximity of an overhead transmission line could interfere with railroad operations, as well as create safety risks. By 2016, however, SOO Green had planned a buried line and reengaged CP in talks. By 2018, SOO Green and CP reached a power line agreement for an underground HVDC project.

Because the line will be located within CP’s right of way for much of its path, SOO Green has done very little easement negotiation with private landowners. Instead, much of its site control efforts have been devoted to securing municipal franchises from the Iowa cities the line will pass through, a requirement of Iowa state law. As such, SOO Green has held public meetings at both the county and municipal level in Iowa. Though no public meetings were required in Illinois, SOO Green voluntarily hosted county-wide public meetings to discuss the project. Additionally, SOO Green has engaged with the Iowa and Illinois Departments of Transportation to secure permits for segments in Iowa and for short stretches in Illinois where the line will run along highways and local roads.

SOO Green chose to pursue a franchise in Iowa that included eminent domain powers, protecting itself from legal challenges against its right to be in the railroad right of way. Incidentally, five landowners made such a challenge in SOO Green’s franchise proceeding, arguing that the original easements they signed with railroads only grant a railroad authority to construct tracks and do not authorize power transmission development. The Iowa Utilities Board declined to adjudicate this claim and further reasoned the line’s request for “eminent domain renders [their claims] moot.” In Illinois, SOO Green is exempted by Climate and Equitable Jobs Act legislation from applying for a CPCN as a merchant developer who does not plan to use eminent domain.

Finally, while SOO Green was not legally required to acquire private landowner consent along the line because of its co-location with the railroad rights of way, adjacent private landowners were still voluntarily engaged and compensated. SOO Green, like most developers, used a third-party land agent company to personally meet with landowners and work through good neighbor agreements, complaints and concerns.

Legal and Expected Benefits: These are legally required forms of compensation, such as taxes and eminent domain payments.

• Property taxes and payments in lieu of taxes: SOO Green commissioned Strategic Economic Research (SER) to conduct an economic impact study which addressed the question of taxation in Iowa. SER estimates that the line will generate $1.5 million in taxes each year for the state of Iowa (based on taxes of $7,000 per pole-mile in Iowa).
• In contrast, Illinois does not tax transmission lines. However, SOO Green plans to negotiate payments of $14 million over the first 20 years of its operation in lieu of taxes with local taxing entities, according to a report by the Illinois Power Agency.
• Municipal franchises: In at least three cases, municipalities opted to have SOO Green fund and construct infrastructure projects within the railroad rights of way which, absent the transmission line, would have been difficult for the city to negotiate independently with the railroad. A common request, especially for some of the larger cities along the line such as Dubuque, was to place infrastructure necessary for broadband expansion within their easement.
• Eminent domain and land payments: SOO Green might use eminent domain authority with a handful of landowners who have challenged the railroad’s authority to negotiate a power line agreement with SOO Green in Iowa but did not invoke it at all in Illinois. The project is, however, actively engaged in negotiations and hopes to avoid the use of eminent domain. Similarly, SOO Green developers were not legally required to compensate landowners whose land is adjacent to the rail easement. The “Community Grants” section below details their attempt to voluntarily compensate these individuals.
• Job creation: Given the unique underground construction methods and new technology, SOO Green has been working with local community colleges and economic development authorities near the route to build a local workforce. Through its “Competitive Edge” and “Hire360” apprenticeship programs, it has committed to create local jobs for underserved youth during project construction.

Procedural Benefits: Procedural benefits are a class of non-monetary and not required benefits that developers often undertake to maintain goodwill with host communities.  

• Honoring Siting Requests: SOO Green honored the requests of cities to change the line route in at least one instance in Iowa. After a request by Bellevue for a line route to avoid the rail corridor because it would have impacted two adjacent roads, SOO Green compromised by diverting the line within the city.

Community Grants:

• Good neighbor payments: SOO Green has opted to give landowners whose property abuts the railroad right of way good neighbor payments. Given the narrow width of land being impacted, the payments themselves are usually a few hundred dollars, being proportional to the length of the adjacent landowner’s segments; a “cooperation agreement and mutual release” contract must be signed in order to obtain the benefit. While many along the line signed the contracts, some were hesitant. The landowners we interviewed viewed signing a contract as implicit acceptance and approval of the project — symbolic consent that some were not willing to give.
• Community development grants: SOO Green has pledged to fund community development grants in the line’s host communities. Some of these funds have already been committed to cities for co-located projects that arose in municipal franchise negotiations. The rest will be disbursed as grants either through existing apprenticeship and job programs that SOO Green has implemented or on an ad-hoc basis.

Co-location Benefits:

• Undergrounding the line: Undergrounding can provide community benefits; for example, it avoids visual and noise pollution. According to interviews with members of the host communities, some residents had environmental and safety concerns. However, every interviewee noted that they preferred an underground line along an existing transportation right of way to an overhead transmission line.
• Undergrounding can also enable high-priority community construction projects that would be otherwise hard to execute. For example, in Dubuque and Mason City, SOO Green will lay fiber optic cable conduit bundles and junction boxes in the trenches it digs for the HVDC line during construction. Other benefits include additional and adjacent surface improvements. As the developer explained, these projects would otherwise be hard to execute because of the time it takes for private and public entities to negotiate rail rights of way co-located infrastructure projects.

Strengths

Undergrounding the transmission line along an existing right of way reduced local and community opposition to the project while making its siting easier. Given that grassroots resistance is often the norm with large transmission projects, the conspicuous lack of opposition to SOO Green — one of the few undergrounded long-distance lines in the U.S. — shows the potential value of undergrounding as a tool for quelling resistance in host communities. For example, the Iowa Farm Bureau was unable to oppose the project in public hearings because none of its farmer members were directly impacted by the project, and therefore none of the members opposed it. Additionally, in its approval of SOO Green’s CPCN, the Iowa Utilities Board used the line’s burial to dismiss safety concerns and its co-location with an existing right of way in its reasoning for why the project satisfied its franchise criteria, noting the preference for co-location of transmission assets in Iowa state code. (§478.18(2)).

Investment in locally determined community construction projects and programs helped build community support for the project. While it is common for transmission projects to provide local community grants, SOO Green is unique in its willingness to make substantial, community-identified and often contractual investments in projects and programs for host communities. SOO Green directly solicited projects from cities impacted by the line or its construction. Critically, these projects are actually obligated by the municipal franchises the company has signed with cities.

Challenges and Gaps

Local tax authorities and communities were largely unsure of the project’s tax impacts, though it is unclear if this was a barrier to project acceptance. While the taxation of the project at the county level is fairly straightforward — $7,000 in tax per pole-mile — according to interviews with county officials, many county assessors and local tax districts did not think they could estimate the tax revenues they would receive for the project. This sentiment was widespread even though tax district revenue estimates were prepared by SER for SOO Green and SOO Green communicated these estimates in public meetings and press releases. According to a tax expert who reviewed the project, this disconnect may be attributable to two factors:

1. Property taxes from transmission lines in Iowa are “replacement” taxes in that they are not determined by the value of the line itself. This differs from normal property taxation where a percentage of a property’s assessed value is paid in taxes annually. It appears that in some cases, tax districts didn’t understand this nuance and believed they would have to know the taxable value of the line itself to predict their revenue, hence their belief that they could not estimate their revenue at all.
2. The allocation of county tax revenues from the line to local tax districts (e.g., towns, school districts, etc.) is not well defined. SER modelled allocation by looking at how many miles of the line went through each tax district and then weighting by millage rate. However, this is only one possible way by which taxes may be allocated.

While this confusion over taxes is notable given that tax revenue is such a substantial community benefit, it is unclear to what extent it affects perceptions of the project’s benefits at the local level.

Financing remains a broader concern for underground lines and contributed to skepticism of SOO Green at both the community and policy level. Recent studies show that while buried HVDC transmission is cost-competitive with traditional overhead AC transmission projects, it is two to four times the cost of overhead HVDC transmission. As such, utilities who rely on public rate recovery and on private investments have historically avoided undergrounding. Some community members interviewed were aware of these cost challenges and expressed skepticism of the line because of them. It is unclear how SOO Green is handling the possibility of cost overruns, a possibility that policy analysts voiced concern over in interviews, given that such overruns will affect the prices of RECs the project generates and subsequently what Illinois consumers will pay for them. However, when asked about financial concerns, SOO Green developers noted that the lifecycle costs of underground transmission are competitive with overhead costs, especially as extreme weather events become more commonplace.

Further Resources

• SOO Green HVDC Link (project website)

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• U.S. People-Centered Transitions

Authors Joe Hack Josh Rogers

US States Are Creating a Pipeline of Trained EV Workers — Here Are the Emerging Trends alicia.cypress… Thu, 01/09/2025 - 08:15

The burgeoning electric vehicles industry in the U.S. is creating new opportunities and demand for a skilled and diverse workforce. Even with threats from the incoming Trump administration to remove federal support and tax credits for EVs, states — including many outside traditional auto manufacturing hubs — are already seeing significant investments that will increase jobs and tax revenues. 

The EV industry will require workers engaged in scientific research to improve technology, design and development, EV and battery manufacturing, maintenance and repair, and charging infrastructure development. Workers with different education and training backgrounds will be needed to fill jobs across these segments, potentially making the EV industry accessible to a wide group of people. But where and how will these workers receive proper training?

Without federal support, state governments and private businesses — that are already acknowledging the significant economic opportunities EVs will create — are likely to play a pivotal role in helping train the workforce.

How We Analyzed EV Training Programs

Our analysis focuses on post-secondary institutions with more than 500 students in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Tennessee from the National Center for Education Statistics College Navigator database, and builds on a previous assessment by the National Association of State Energy Officials, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and Duke University. 

We identified training programs by researching college and university websites, collecting information on degree and certifications, enrollment prerequisites, skills and knowledge areas, career opportunities and whether programs mention any industry partnerships or connections.    We then classified programs under EV industry segments: manufacturing, maintenance/repair and vehicle charging. Under each, we marked programs as “Yes (EV-specific),” if they explicitly mentioned an EV focus or connection, or as “Potential EV” (Not EV-specific) if they did not mention EVs but teach related skills that can be expanded to include EV-specific offerings.

To better understand the landscape for training opportunities, we looked at colleges and universities, and other technical schools in the states where the most private funds for electric vehicle and battery manufacturing facilities have been invested in the U.S.

As of March 2024, data from the Environmental Defense Fund shows private auto manufacturers have committed the highest amount of investments — about $100 billion — in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Tennessee.  Additional data from the U.S. Department of Energy, shows a significant amount of private investments have been made in battery raw material extraction and processing in Nevada and Tennessee, while North Carolina, Michigan and Georgia have attracted large investments for battery cell and pack manufacturing. Georgia and Michigan are also leading the way in EV assembly and component manufacturing.

From examining these five states, we found five key trends that explain how EV training programs are shaping up.

1) Public Community and Technical Colleges Are at the Forefront of EV Workforce Training

Out of the 196 colleges or universities in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Tennessee that offer EV-specific training or existing programs that can be expanded to offer future EV-specific training (we refer to these as potential EV programs), 172 (88%) are public institutions, out of which 129 (75%) are two-year public institutions like community or technical colleges.

Community colleges are invaluable to the training of skilled technical workers for the growing EV industry and occupy a unique position in the U.S. education system. They offer a range of training programs, including degree programs, certifications in different systems and technologies and apprenticeships, and because of that they are well positioned to respond quickly to training students for jobs in the EV industry. Furthermore, community colleges can contribute to building a diverse and inclusive industry because these schools also serve a significant percentage of low-income, minority and first-generation college students.

These institutions also already prepare students for different career opportunities in the auto industry and many have begun adding EV-related courses to their programs. Wake Tech Community College  in North Carolina, for example, is teaching its electrical degree students how to install and repair charging stations and its transportation program students how to diagnose and repair electric vehicles. These courses build on its four existing degree programs related to automotive systems technology, collision repair and refinishing technology, diesel and heavy equipment technology, and electrical systems technology.

2) Most EV-Specific Training Programs Focus on Vehicle Maintenance or Repair  

Institutions are developing EV-specific training programs to meet industry needs in two distinct ways:

• Through specialized degrees or certificates with classes or curriculum that primarily focus on EVs. In Michigan, Washtenaw Community College’s Transportation Technologies (AAS) program is one example that offers students a specialized concentration in Electric Vehicle Service and Repair. Other examples in Michigan include Lansing Community College’s Advanced Electric Drive/Alternative Fuels certificate program, Kettering University’s Master of Engineering in Electric Vehicles Features and Objectives program and Wayne State University’s Electric-Drive Vehicle Engineering
• Institutions are also adding a specific class on EVs or alternate fuels to existing automative technology programs. The Automotive Technology Associate and Certificate program at Henry Ford College in Michigan offers one example. These programs broadly cover different vehicle systems or technologies, but includes one course on Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Systems, focusing on the operation, service, and safety concerns of electric propulsion systems.

More institutions — mostly community and technical colleges — have developed EV-specific programs related to vehicle maintenance and repair, than those on vehicle manufacturing and charging segments. In addition to providing a background in basic automotive mechanics, these institutions offer training that includes knowledge of high-voltage systems, battery technology, electric motors, and diagnostics and repairs specific to EVs.

Our research also finds that different institutions including four-year colleges or universities offer programs that can be expanded to include EV-specific training—which we refer to as potential EV programs in this article. Some examples of these programs include mechanical engineering, welding, automotive systems/technologies, electrical or electrical systems engineering, among others. While these programs already provide the knowledge base and occupational training suitable for various industries including the legacy auto industry, they offer more opportunities to introduce EV-specific curriculums as EV adoption increases.

3) Enrollment Requirements and Time Commitments Vary Significantly 

While many certificate programs do not specify enrollment prerequisites, a high school diploma or equivalent like the completion of a GED is a common prerequisite for associate degree programs in community and technical colleges or four-year institutions. Students may also need to take additional placement tests, like in the case of the associate degree program in Electrical Systems Technology at Tri-County Community College in North Carolina.

Programs in four-year institutions can also ask for more specific requirements depending on how specialized or advanced the program is. The Automotive and Mobility Systems Engineering program at University of Michigan-Dearborn and the Hybrid Electric Drive Vehicle Engineering program at Michigan Technological University are a couple of examples that require prior bachelor’s level experience in science, technology, engineering or math fields. 

Most programs, which range from two-year degree programs to certifications, are a combination of in-person classroom and lab-based training. The Advanced Electric Drive/Alternative Fuels certificate program and other programs related to automotive technologies at Lansing Community College, describe 70% of the curriculum as lab-based lectures and coursework. In contrast, there are online certificate programs that offer more flexibility for students. The Electric Vehicles Fundamentals (EVF) certificate offered by Montgomery Community College in North Carolina for instance, does not mention any academic prerequisites and is a self-paced virtual program that students can take to prepare for entry-level positions in EV manufacturing and assembly. Mayland Community College in North Carolina and DeVry University in Georgia also offer online programs

The duration of training programs also varies by program. Overall, certificate programs require shorter time commitments compared to other degree-based programs. Certificate programs can range from a few weeks to two years. Programs like Wake Tech Community College’s the Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) Field Technician certificate program and Truckee Meadows Community College’s Advanced Manufacturing FastTrack program are a couple of examples that span five to seven weeks, while the Gogebic Community College’s Automotive Technology Certificate Program spans two years. Even shorter certification programs are available, like the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program , which is a 20-hour course that students can complete online to earn its certification.    

4) Programs Prepare Students for 3 Common Certifications 

Beyond degree programs, students can also pursue different certifications to earn expertise in specific systems or technologies needed to work in the EV industry. Among the programs we researched and reviewed, these are three commonly recognized automotive and EV industry credentials:

• The Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certification is a well-recognized industry standard for automotive technicians, earned through on-the-job training and passing exams. In 2023, ASE created two new certifications, xEV Electrical Safety Awareness Certification and xEV Technician Electrical Safety Certification, to certify repair shops and their employees based on their involvement with EVs.
• The American Welding Society (AWS) offers several professional certifications for welders and inspectors that are relevant for the EV industry. AWS’ certification program for Robotic Arc Welding, for instance, certifies that welding professionals have the capability to operate various robotic welding machines that are common in modern manufacturing plants, including EV plants.
• The National Institute of Metalworking Skills (NIMS) provides credentials for various industry trades, such as machining and tooling. NIMS focuses on certifying advanced manufacturing skills required to operate and maintain emerging manufacturing tools, machinery, or computer- and network-based systems that are gaining importance in battery and EV manufacturing facilities.        

5) Industry and Policy Trends Help Shape EV Training Programs

U.S. states, including the five that are the focus of this article, are adopting policies and incentives to attract more EV private investments and working with their state agencies to develop a skilled talent pipeline that will be crucial to meet these emerging industry needs. 

North Carolina for instance, is working toward a goal of 1.25 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030. To help the state achieve this goal, agencies like the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) are utilizing funding from the North Carolina Volkswagen Settlement Grant Program, the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program and the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, to expand the deployment of EV chargers. Private initiatives like Duke Energy’s “Make-Ready” program are also driving up deployment of EV chargers.

Preparing to meet the workforce needs of the rapidly developing EV charging industry is one factor why institutions like Wake Tech have created training opportunities like the EVSE Field Technician Certification program, partnering with industry stakeholders like the Siemens Foundation. Nine other community and technical colleges in the state are also receiving NCDOT funding to install EV chargers and develop clean vehicle training courses covering the installation and maintenance of chargers and vehicle manufacturing and repair.

In Nevada, a state which has not been heavily associated with auto manufacturing, EV training opportunities are also emerging as a result of investments and more state government support. With $10 billion in private investments for battery manufacturing announced, state agencies like the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) are working closely with other state entities to create a skilled workforce for local businesses and facilities. GOED’s Workforce Innovations for the New Nevada program has allocated more than $17 million to develop training opportunities at Nevada institutions, including the College of Southern Nevada, Truckee Meadows Community College, Great Basin College and Western Nevada College, in targeted skill areas, like battery manufacturing, needed by companies in the state.  

Michigan provides another example of state agencies playing an active role to develop training opportunities. The Electric Vehicle Center (EVC) at the University of Michigan for instance, was established in 2023 with the support of a $130 million investment from the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. The EVC aims to incorporate EV-focused lessons for different Bachelor’s and Master’s programs across its engineering departments and certificate courses on autonomous and electric vehicles and battery manufacturing.

As different states continue to work towards their EV adoption or EV industry goals, they will have to carefully assess appropriate timeframes to develop training opportunities and the talent pipeline for the EV industry. Programs for EV maintenance and charging, in particular, are likely to have a higher need in areas where the EV transition is already picking up pace.

Expanding EV Training Programs for a More Diverse Workforce

The influx of EV industry investments and EV transition goals are encouraging different states to create and support adequate training opportunities. While this analysis sheds light on different characteristics of existing EV training programs in post-secondary institutions in the five states with the most private investment — Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Tennessee — further research is needed to better understand how more institutions can adapt to the evolving EV industry and how training programs can be accessible to students from diverse backgrounds.

Building a comprehensive inventory of EV training opportunities in and beyond post-secondary institutions, identifying key knowledge areas or curriculum in manufacturing, maintenance and repair, and charging, assessing who these programs are serving, and learning from the experiences of training providers and students themselves are key research areas that will need more attention.

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• Electric Vehicles in the U.S.

Authors Rajat Shrestha Devashree Saha Stephanie Ly Jenna Schulman Evana Said Maria Dye Grace Flynn

How Global Climate Initiatives Can Risk Indigenous Women’s Land Rights alicia.cypress… Wed, 01/08/2025 - 08:02

After years of being away from her ancestral village of Jotomana, Rosa Velásquez, a member of the Wayúu Indigenous group in La Guajira, Colombia, was greeted by gigantic wind turbines punctuating the horizon and dominating the surrounding landscape.

“We live among turbines. The companies like them, but I don’t,” Velásquez told The Guardian. “Where am I to go if this is my territory? What are my grandchildren going to do once I die?”

While Velásquez wrestled with these uncertainties, Leiji Hana González, a 32-year-old Wayuu mother of two, and her family were forced to flee their 40-year-old home in her ancestral village because of land conflict sparked by the installation of a wind farm on their land.

González recounted to Dialogue Earth how armed men belonging to a group that wanted to control clan territory and negotiate with the wind park developer burst into the house shooting and killing one of her aunts. They buried her aunt on the same day and then escaped in the middle of the night with barely more than the clothes on their backs. The family moved to Riohacha, the capital of La Guajira, to live in exile.

These kinds of stories about displacement and land conflict borne by Indigenous women and their communities have become embedded in Colombia’s transition to renewable wind and solar energy as global climate initiatives help the country reduce climate-harming emissions and restore nature.

As Colombia seeks to transition to renewable energy, wind turbines are installed in areas of La Guajira that are home to Indigenous peoples. Photo by Nelson David Alonso Charry/Flickr. How Climate Initiatives Can Put Women at Risk

Recognizing Indigenous lands is important to achieving forest and biodiversity targets and mitigation goals. This is directly acknowledged in initiatives like the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30x30 Target, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) and Net Zero by 2050.

However, the actions necessary to achieve these targets can sometimes result in pressure  and infringement on Indigenous and local land tenure systems that are already insecure due to lack of formal recognition and communities’ weak participation in decision-making related to climate initiatives. These pressures are experienced differently by women and men because of social, economic and political dynamics that influence land tenure and community governance systems. Failure to account for gender when implementing climate initiatives can risk eroding the traditional land entitlements of women and trigger additional negative impacts.

The rights within Indigenous land tenure systems are defined by gender, and social markers including marital status, age and kin group. They are often held collectively by the group but different women and men within that group have different rights and obligations. For example, the Wayuu are a matrilineal society where kinship and rights to inherit land run along the maternal line (from mother or aunt to daughter). With these rights also come the obligation for women to impart cultural and traditional knowledge to the next generation.

Studies show that in general  women bear more risks from external pressures on collectively held lands no matter the tenure system. This is so even in Indigenous matrilineal communities, where women’s land rights are culturally legitimate.

The biggest risks women face include:

Loss of Traditional Land Rights

For González and other Wayuu women whose families get mired in disputes over lands designated for climate initiatives, the loss of traditional land rights is their biggest risk. Beyond displacement for entire families, women additionally lose the specific ancestral property they are entitled to under the matrilineal tenure system.

Resettling on new land can often be precarious. It’s more difficult for women to purchase land because they often have lower incomes and educational levels, lack access to credit or don’t have proper identification documents.

Moreover, especially in and around urban areas, land acquisition may require the male head of household to be named as the owner on property titles. This requirement can effectively erode matrilineal cultures, as it replaces the traditional system of rights and obligations for women with a male dominated majority culture.

 Women can also lose their land rights when climate initiatives fail to abide by international conventions, such as the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (ILO 169), which requires initiatives to include a consultation process and obtain the consent of Indigenous communities. This is the case with Indigenous Bribri women in Talamanca, Costa Rica, one of the most forest-rich regions in the country and among the areas identified for carbon offset programs under REDD+. Like the Wayuu, the Bribri are a matrilineal society where maternal clans own land.

Interviews with members of the Bribri suggested that during REDD+ negotiations, government negotiators bypassed the Bribri ancestral authority (the council of elders) in favor of the Integral Development Association, which serves as the local governance body in Indigenous territories. Since the Integral Development Association is not bound to follow the rules of the matrilineal tenure system in negotiating terms, compensation and benefit-sharing of the agreement, women we interviewed said this could threaten their traditional land rights.

There’s precedent from previous carbon contracts managed by the Integral Development Association, where the management of funds ultimately led to mistrust in the Integral Development Association and conflict among community members because the association chose to bypass customary tenure rules in the investment and distribution of funds.

Without an approach that’s inclusive of the community, initiatives like REDD+ could disregard women’s cultural entitlement to land and instead value Indigenous land for its carbon storage.

A Bribri woman stirs a chocolate drink she made from scratch. Many Bribri women rely on cacao agroforestry for their livelihoods and food security. Photo by Ray Waddington/Alamy Stock Photo. Disruption of Land-based Livelihoods

Another significant risk faced by women is the loss or disruption of their land-based livelihoods. For the Bribri, the emphasis of Costa Rica’s REDD+ strategy on forest conservation and prohibition of land use change to enhance carbon stock can disrupt the Bribri’s use of their lands.

Bribri forest conservation is integrated with Indigenous livelihoods and domestic practices, such as hunting, extracting plants for medicinal and other purposes, tree felling for construction and cultivating small crops (such as citrus, banana and cacao). Forests are also integral to Bribri spirituality, which allows them to maintain one of the most densely forested areas in the country.

Many Bribri women rely on cacao agroforestry for their livelihoods and food security. Others depend on nature tourism to supplement the economy. In Yorkin village, tourism earnings have funded a health clinic, high school, aqueduct and community center.

For the Wayuu, the Colombian government’s plan to intersperse La Guajira with wind parks significantly disrupts their traditional economic activities, which includes raising goats and sheep and small-scale agriculture. The semi-arid landscape already presents challenges, but the destruction of vegetation and excavation of land to erect wind turbines and build access roads and support structures are degrading open pastures and farming land.

In one community, 10 families saw a 50% decrease in livestock in less than five months after a large goat feeder was demolished by the regional environmental agency charged with overseeing wind park projects.

Meanwhile, new jobs promised to the local communities by wind park projects are often generated only during the construction phase, as afterwards most jobs are either automated or require special skills.

Installation of wind turbines are disrupting the livelihoods of the Wayuu in La Guajira, Colombia, which includes raising goats and sheep. Photo by Nelson David Alonso Charry/Flickr. Erosion of Social Support Systems

In matrilineal and matrilocal (societies where the family residence is in the wife’s village or clan territory) communities, where families live in compounds or settlements, the loss of land tenure often leads to a loss of support systems for women. One such case involves the Indigenous Guna community in Guna Yala, a group of islands off Panama’s Caribbean coast affected by sea level rise.  

The Guna live in family compounds consisting of several structures designed for large and multigenerational families. This allows women to share domestic responsibilities, diversify their livelihoods and exercise considerable decision-making powers.

Rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms are causing many of the Guna Yala island communities to consider relocating to their traditional lands on Panama’s mainland. Gardi Sugdub, the first island community that made this decision a decade ago received some government support for housing and resettlement. However, the Guna had little input on the resettlement plan developed by the government, and their matrilineal tenure system and matrilocal residency were not accounted for in the design of the new settlement and prioritization of plot ownership.

The new settlement designed by the government is laid out as an urban development set up on a grid, with individual dwellings suited for nuclear families. The Guna have yet to officially move to the resettlement village, but the design risks reshaping the Guna women’s land tenure system and entitlements in at least two ways. First, it may nudge a transition from collective land ownership to a more Western land tenure concept that privileges private ownership and titling in the name of the head of household, which is typically the husband or male relative. Second, it may shift Guna culture from one centered on the extended family to that of a nuclear family, potentially weakening the matrilineal tenure system and women’s social support network that the multi-generational residency provides. Research shows that how architecture and spatial organization is designed influences people’s behavior and social practices.

Sea level rise is threatening the homes of the Guna people in Guna Yala, Panama. Photo by MarcPo/iStock.  Mitigating Women’s Risks

The vital roles of women in communities like the Wayuu, Bribri and Guna as food producers, homemakers, resource caretakers and leaders — and the centrality of secure land tenure to these roles — make it essential for climate initiatives and actions to incorporate strategies and measures to protect women’s land entitlements.

 For example, research shows that women with secure land rights have a greater say in household income and expenditures that typically improves family food security and children’s health and education. Also, women who own land tend to invest more in climate adaptation strategies, as secure land tenure empower them to make long-term decisions about their land and adopt practices like sustainable agriculture, agroforestry and soil conservation to protect their land and improve their resilience to climate change impacts. But with any climate strategy or initiative, it is important that the approach ensures cultural sensitivity and applies a consultative process that’s inclusive of women and marginalized segments of the community. Measures to achieve this include:

1) Institutionalizing Free, Prior and Informed Consent According to International Standards

Even when there’s some form of consultation with Indigenous women and their communities, it still falls short of genuine participation and recognition of Indigenous rights and customary tenure systems. Meaningful consultations require mandating and institutionalizing Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), which are international standards set by ILO 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

2) Support More Decision-Making by Indigenous Women and their Organizations

Women in Wayuu, Bribri and Guna communities were mostly underrepresented and played secondary roles in the processes and decisions impacting their land security, social support and livelihoods. Their crucial roles as producers, natural resources caretakers, and keepers and transmitters of ancestral knowledge, including traditional medicine, necessitate their participation in decision-making for climate action to be equitable and sustainable. Relevant state authorities, including gender ministries, collaborating with nongovernmental organizations, can provide support through, among others:

• Rights-awareness and leadership trainings to give Indigenous women and men a stronger voice to influence decisions.
• Skills-building trainings to improve economic prospects in case of loss of traditional livelihoods.
• Gender-sensitization activities for government personnel and third parties implementing climate actions, such as organizing workshops with women to design gender-responsive guidelines and safeguards for project implementation.
• Providing safe and convenient opportunities and spaces for women to meet, network and organize.
• Protecting women and men who may be threatened and placed in harm’s way while defending their lands and rights.

 3) Address Policy and Regulatory Gaps in Climate Action

Policy and regulatory gaps related to the climate initiatives or actions must be addressed by the state. For example, in Panama, climate policies on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction can be strengthened to provide greater guidance on planned relocation of Indigenous communities, ensuring such initiatives are implemented in a culturally appropriate manner incorporating Indigenous and local perspectives. In Colombia, the energy transition policy can incorporate national consultation guidelines aligned with FPIC with minimum standards that guarantee the participation of women and marginalized groups, and secure Indigenous Peoples’ and women’s land rights. And in Costa Rica, the state can  enact measures to properly implement REDD+ in Indigenous territories, including the integration of two components identified by Bribri women, namely, gender, language and culture; and tourism, both of which support the matrilineal culture and secure women’s land tenure and livelihoods.

For more on this topic, read WRI’s working paper: Potential Risks to Women’s Land Rights from Climate Actions: Exploring Matrilineal Communities in Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama.

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• Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

Authors Celine Salcedo-La Viña Anamaría Martinez Patricia Quijano Vallejos

More Than Ore: The Pivotal Role Recycled Copper Can Play in the Energy Transition alicia.cypress… Tue, 01/07/2025 - 08:00

Copper is one of the most crucial minerals needed to drive the clean energy transition, and a faster transition could push copper demand beyond current production capacity. One way to overcome this challenge is by recycling.

Copper — that reddish-brown soft metal found in everything from electronics to cookware — is needed for all renewable energy technologies, including wind, solar and energy storage, as well as the grid infrastructure required to integrate it all.

Under the International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Emission by 2050 Scenario, 50% of copper demand will be dedicated to clean energy technologies by 2040 and the overall global demand is projected to grow by at least 50% by 2050.

Power systems supported by renewable energy sources may use six to 12 times more copper than a fossil-fuel-based power system. Copper is also necessary for electric vehicles, which require at least two to three times more copper than traditional gas vehicles.

Significantly increasing copper mining in the short term faces several challenges, including long development lead times for deeper mines, permitting delays for new mines and decreasing ore quality from existing mines requiring a higher energy and water consumption per mass of copper extracted.

Here, we explore copper’s significance and how recycling it — especially at a product’s end of life — can help sustainably increase the supplies for a clean energy future.

Why Copper Matters

Copper has helped shape human development over thousands of years. Historically, it’s been used for decorative items and tools. Today, it plays a vital and versatile role in a wide range of industrial applications due to its exceptional and unique properties, such as its flexibility, conductivity and resistance to corrosion.

Copper is the second-best electrical conductor after silver, making it indispensable in the power sector for wiring transmission. Copper’s high conductivity significantly reduces resistance in electricity transmission, minimizing energy losses that would otherwise be converted to heat and helping to lower associated carbon emissions.

Nearly 70% of the copper used worldwide is dedicated to electrical conductivity and communication purposes. In addition, copper’s excellent thermal conductivity and strong corrosion resistance make it highly valuable in the construction and building sectors, where it can be found in long-term applications such as plumbing, heat exchangers and radiators.

Copper wiring is used in the production of a wind turbine in India. Photo by Joerg Boethling / Alamy Stock Photo.

Copper is also highly malleable (it can be hammered or pressed without breaking or cracking) and its ductility (the ability to change shape without losing its strength) makes it ideal for manufacturing intricate or small components, such as fine wires in computers or smartphones. Furthermore, copper’s natural antimicrobial properties allow it to kill bacteria and viruses on contact, making it valuable in the health care industry for copper-coated medical devices that reduce the spread of infections. Copper can also be combined with different elements to form alloys like brass and bronze, found in many applications such as valves, fittings, bearings, bushings, industrial machinery components, as well as Olympic bronze medals, jewelry and fine art.

Overall, copper is widely used across various sectors worldwide: 44% in power generation and transmission, 20% in construction and buildings, 14% in electrical equipment and electronic devices, 12% in vehicles and the transportation sector and 10% in other consumer goods such as coins, sculptures, jewelry, musical instruments and cookware, according to the International Copper Association.

As a backbone of both modern life and the global energy transition, every opportunity to source copper matters. In addition to opening new mines and extending the life of existing mines, recycling copper from products at their end of life is another important yet often overlooked source. 

The Potential of Recycling End-of-Life Copper

Recycled copper includes copper from both manufacturing processes (pre-consumer or new scrap) and end-of-life products (post-consumer or old scrap) that have reached the end of their useful lifecycle. Copper’s remarkable property of being 100% recyclable without losing its inherent properties makes it a highly viable supplement to mining new copper.

Copper produced from recycled materials can save up to 85% of the energy needed for mining and extraction. While the exact quantity of energy and greenhouse gas savings depends on how it’s recycled and the quality of secondary input materials, recycling copper can significantly reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions across the entire supply chain.

End-of-life consumer products, like this broken computer power supply box, includes copper wiring among its components. Photo by KPixMining / Alamy Stock Photo. 

Currently, recycled copper accounts for about one-third of the world’s copper supply. While it can’t completely replace primary copper production from mining, recycled copper can serve as a critical supply buffer, helping to mitigate potential market tightness or price shocks. The greatest recycling opportunities will come from products at their end of life like electronic waste (or e-waste), which is the world’s fastest-growing waste stream at 62 million tons a year.

Some regions are already showing initiatives. For example, in the European Union, the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive mandates that all end-of-life vehicles achieve a minimum of 95% recovery and 85% recycling based on their average weight, including materials such as copper. In the U.S., many recycling initiatives are driven by procurement specifications set by government agencies and companies that encourage the recovery and reuse of materials like copper. Additionally, various state and federal programs help foster a growing market for recycled copper and other metals.

In China, the government recently established the China Resource Recycling Group to improve nationwide recycling efforts of metals, including copper from end-of-life vehicles, home appliances, electronic waste, solar panels and wind turbines.

Modeling simulations from Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers show that recycled copper, particularly from end-of-life products, can play an increasingly essential role in helping meet the growing demand of what will be needed by mid-century. By integrating advanced processing technologies with significantly improved recycling rates, around two-thirds of newly available end-of-life copper scrap could be recovered and recycled by 2040. This would enable the additional recovery of over 6 million tons of copper from landfills each year — equivalent to more than 16 Empire State Buildings made entirely of copper and 30% more than the total copper production in 2023 from the world’s 10 largest copper mines.

However, to fully harness the potential of end-of-life copper to meet the growing copper demand, the global end-of-life copper recycling rates will need to double from the current levels at 32% to 66%.

Copper Recycling’s Complex Challenges

Copper recycling is a complex process with multiple steps such as collection, sorting, smelting and refining, and deploying diverse technologies and practices tailored to different waste streams. Taking e-waste as an example, the small amount of copper used in electronic devices might require more effort to recycle than other products.

In addition, recent policy changes have significantly impacted the copper scrap recycling market and global trade. For example, the Chinese government implemented a solid waste import ban in 2017, which would make it difficult for the country to process low-grade scrap sources for recycled copper. Previously, many developed countries, including the U.S., the United Kingdom and Japan, had exported low-grade copper scrap to China. In March 2023, the EU considered copper a critical and strategic raw material for the first time. This signals an acknowledgement of the need to secure copper supply for the EU’s transition to climate neutrality as global copper demand grows and is likely to increase pressure to keep more copper scrap in the EU. As a result, international trade in copper scrap is expected to decline. To make up for this deficit, countries will need to recycle copper domestically or regionally.

Currently, the U.S., Europe and China dominate global end-of-life copper volume, collectively accounting for about 60% of the collectible end-of-life copper and nearly 80% of the global copper scrap market by annual revenue. However, these regions face different bottlenecks to scale up their recycling efforts.

In the U.S., a major bottleneck is the lack of smelting and refinery capacity, especially for end-of-life copper, although this is changing with more facilities coming online or in development. In Europe, the largest challenge for copper recycling operations arises from regulatory hurdles that make it difficult to ship scrap from one EU country to another, high operational and energy costs and a conservative business environment that restricts growth. This challenge is further aggravated by the trade-off between increasing the recycling of lower-grade scrap and reducing carbon dioxide emissions to achieve the EU’s ambitious climate goals. This is because emissions may come from the plastic in e-waste that can’t be separated prior to smelting.

In China, government policies such as subsidies and incentives largely shape recycling practices. China needs a more resilient policy framework to build a more robust copper recycling market, especially by increasing domestic copper scrap supply since governmental subsidies are crucial to making the market economically viable. However, policies promoting long-term market health may lead to short-term market adjustments, as recyclers temporarily choose to hold copper scrap in their inventories, creating supply fluctuations.

What’s Needed to Scale Recycled Copper?

Scaling recycled copper is not just a technical challenge. It requires a solid copper recycling market based on a circular economy.

To increase the end-of-life copper recycling rate in an environmentally and socially responsible way, the following is needed: 

• A reliable and steady supply of feedstock in various grades by collecting copper scraps from end-of-life products and transporting them to processing facilities. Consumer groups, brands, retailers, logistics companies, municipalities and NGOs need to work together to raise public awareness and develop effective take-back/bring-back systems to increase the collection of end-of-life products. Public authorities and standardization organizations can seek transportation solutions for collected feedstock for recycling.
• High-standard processing capacity using advanced technologies is needed to transform copper scrap into recycled copper materials in each recycling step. Governments and the private sector must collaborate on policy frameworks and incentives to help accelerate and expand capacity with high technical, environmental, and social standards, especially for lower-grade copper. Civil society can support the industry with ESG performance and local community engagement for knowledge sharing and best practices.
• Strong market demand for recycled copper from downstream semi-fabricators and manufacturers can help drive the adoption of recycled copper as a sustainable material alternative to manufacturing. Many industrial applications do not need the highest purity of recycled copper if copper scraps can be sorted and refined properly and efficiently. Matching applications with “pure enough” recycled copper can avoid unnecessary processing steps, reducing recycling costs and lowering carbon and other environmental footprints. Copper recyclers, semi-fabricators and end-use industries need to work together to increase awareness of the benefits of using recycled copper and to understand and align on purity needs to unlock market potential for recycled copper from end-of-life scrap.

Building such a robust copper recycling market, unlocking the potential of circular copper supply chains through innovative business models and embedding circularity in our economy are essential steps to improve end-of-life copper recycling practices.

Substantially increasing copper recycling will complement copper from mining and support the supply of minerals needed by the energy transition. Improvements in collection, transport and recycling economics can directly benefit the recovery of other critical minerals (e.g. cobalt, rare-earth elements) today, as well as emerging end-of-life clean energy products such as EV batteries and solar panels, which will reach significant volumes in the coming decade.

Experts from the International Copper Association and Massachusetts Institute of Technology contributed information to this report.

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Authors Xixi Chen Ke Wang

STATEMENT: U.S. Treasury Department Rules that Cleanest Hydrogen Projects to Receive Top Tax Credits nate.shelter@wri.org Fri, 01/03/2025 - 13:49

Washington, DC (January 3, 2025) — Today the U.S. Treasury Department released its final rule on 45V Hydrogen Production Tax Credit, enabling clean hydrogen producers to secure production incentives and accelerate the U.S. clean energy transition.

Clean hydrogen is widely considered to be an important solution for decarbonizing energy-intensive sectors, such as heavy industry and commercial transport.

The final guidance keeps intact the three pillars proposed by Treasury in December 2023. These would require that new, additional clean energy be generated in the same region and hour that produces the hydrogen to qualify for the $3 per kilogram production credit. It grants new flexibility for each pillar for hydrogen producers while maintaining the three pillars’ core integrity.

Following is a statement from Angela Anderson, Director of Industrial Innovation and Carbon Removal, U.S. Climate, World Resources Institute:

“The final rule ensures that only hydrogen projects produced from zero-carbon energy will qualify for the most generous tax incentives. Hydrogen’s ability to maximize pollution reduction depends on how it is produced, and this rule will incentivize industrial companies to choose cleaner methods of production.

“These rules will encourage industrial companies to adopt a vital clean energy solution that will both slash their pollution and boost their competitiveness. The Treasury Department’s decision to maintain the three pillars while allowing some well-monitored flexibility will help steel, chemicals, refining and other industrial companies scale up clean hydrogen projects that reduce emissions.

“The Treasury Department rules signal to industry leaders and investors that now is the time to launch innovative hydrogen projects that provide reliable energy and feedstock alternatives, particularly for carbon-intensive industries. These tax credits will enable American companies to be competitive in this emerging market, bringing new jobs and cleaner energy to communities.”

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