Transcript:
Climate change and pollution harm some communities more than others. So Tony Reames, a professor at the University of Michigan, was glad when the Biden administration promised to address these inequities.
He took a job at the Department of Energy and worked on the Justice40 Initiative – an effort to direct more climate and clean energy investments toward these disadvantaged places.
Reames: “We needed to ensure that communities that were feeling the climate crisis first and worst were also at the front of the line for the solutions. … And again, these were communities that had pollution burdens, energy burdens, transportation burdens.”
For example, areas with a lot of industrial pollution – which worsens kids’ asthma – were prioritized for grants to help pay for clean electric school buses.
And neighborhoods where many people struggle with high utility bills because their homes are old and drafty were prioritized for weatherization assistance and solar energy.
Reames: “It’s not just the energy transition for transition’s sake, but it’s really, how do these decisions and technologies actually reduce costs for people.”
Now the Trump administration has eliminated many of these programs, a setback for the work.
But Reames says there are still opportunities to advocate at the local level for policies and programs that can help the communities who suffer most.
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media
