Union of Concerned Scientists Global Warming

Last year, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) made headlines across the country when we published a report demonstrating how worsening wildfires in the West are linked to the unrelenting, shameless emissions of the fossil fuel companies. While we hope that our science will bolster efforts to hold these companies accountable, the truth is that such accountability is necessary but insufficient.

Climate-change fueled disasters will continue to have impacts on human health. We must measure these impacts and mitigate them. Wildfires have the most obvious and devastating effects on the lives of the people living in the neighborhoods that they destroy, but the impact they have on our air and water can spread far beyond the burn scar.

Two bills being considered by the California legislature can help mitigate the public health impacts of wildfires. UCS supports the passage of both.

Wildfires and water quality

Most of California’s water comes from rain and snow that falls in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and flows down to the population centers throughout the state. Usually, vegetation and soil will help soak up the rain and slow the flow of rainwater, nutrients, and soil over the land.

When a wildfire burns away vegetation and scorches soil, the soil becomes less absorbent and precipitation flows more quickly into the rivers, eroding away soil and picking up nutrients in higher quantities than usual, along with ash and debris. Worse, if a wildfire burns through an area populated by humans, when the rain falls, toxic chemicals from burning cars, plastics, and all sorts of synthetic products can flow into waterways and drinking water systems.

For more on the impacts that wildfires have on water quantity and quality, read our 2022 factsheet, Fire and Water in the Western United States.

Wildfire and air quality

Anyone who has lived in California for the past few years knows that our summers are plagued with unhealthy air quality days. And as is too often the case, the Central Valley bears the brunt of this impact.

There is an enormous amount of data on the adverse health impacts associated with poor air quality: respiratory issues, cognitive issues, impacts on pregnant people and their babies, and more. Many California communities already have some of the highest rates of heart and lung disease in the country, and these problems are only made worse by wildfire smoke.

What can we do?

California must continue to aggressively and equitably phase out fossil fuels across all sectors to minimize growth in the size and severity of future wildfires. The state should also plan for and fund projects that make our forests and communities more resilient to wildfire.

However, even with these actions, wildfires are a part of our lives in the western United States, as they have been for generations given our climate and our ecosystems. We must understand and mitigate their impact on human health.

There are two bills currently moving through the California Legislature that the Union of Concerned Scientists supports as key steps towards this end:

• Senate Bill 945 (Alvarado-Gil)would require state agencies to create, operate, and maintain a statewide-integrated wildfire smoke and health data platform to facilitate action from state authorities and the medical community to confront this critical, public health issue. We can’t improve what we can’t measure, and the current status quo makes it difficult to get a comprehensive picture of how smoke is affecting the health of Californians throughout the state.
• Senate Bill 1176 (Niello) would require state agencies and research entities to form a work group to establish best practices and recommendations for wildfire-impacted communities and first responders to avoid exposure to heavy metals after a wildfire.

California should pass these bills, continue to look for opportunities to make data on wildfire impacts accessible, and make data-informed decisions on protecting people from wildfire-associated human health impacts.

This week, the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights (IACHR) started to hear testimony at the University of the West Indies, near Bridgetown, Barbados, addressing one of the most pressing global issues of our time: climate change and its implications on human rights. Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Research Scientist Carly Philips (pictured on the left above) testified on April 24. With dozens testifying over three packed days, the court heard powerful statements focused on impacts to small nation-states, connections between climate and health, calls for intergenerational justice, and—the focus of UCS’s input—state obligations to reduce corporate emissions. All testimony was recorded and can be watched here.

Greater capacity brings greater responsibility

The landmark hearing opened with statements by representatives from Chile and Colombia, which, in 2023, had sought the court’s advisory opinion on the interplay between climate change and human rights. Their requests underline a need for clarity about states’ responsibilities, emphasizing protections for children and women, environmental defenders, and the frameworks of loss and damage.  Importantly, loss and damage frameworks suggest that while all nations have a role in combating climate change, those with more capacity and resources should shoulder a greater burden.

Barbados, a small island state profoundly affected by climate change, brought to light the tangible harms it faces—increased difficulty in agriculture, threats to its fishing and tourism industries, and significant losses from recent tropical storms. Its position is a poignant reminder of the immediate and severe impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities.

During the sessions, Robert Volterra, a representative for Barbados and an expert in international law, argued persuasively that states contributing to climate change owe compensation to those that suffer its adverse effects disproportionately. He highlighted the potential danger of the court’s advisory opinion becoming a “rich person’s climate change advisory opinion,” which would fail to hold wealthy nations accountable and leave developing countries to face the consequences alone.

Bridging science and law

UCS expert Dr. Phillips provided a compelling scientific perspective that reinforced the urgency of addressing climate change as a threat multiplier and clarified the disproportionate impact of climate change on the Americas. You can watch the full testimony here.

UCS was invited to testify before the court as co-author of a joint amicus brief that focused on corporate accountability for the climate crisis, written with Greenpeace International, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), and the New York University School of Law’s Climate Law Accelerator (CLX). The organization’s testimony served as a scientific backbone to the legal discussions, stressing the need for immediate and coordinated action to address the intertwined crises of climate change and human rights.

Dr. Phillips’s testimony pointed out that attribution science—identifying the direct links between specific actions and climate change—confirms the causal connections between the conduct of major polluters, primarily large companies from the Global North, and the adverse effects now being suffered globally. Citing this evidence, she made the case for the need to regulate business activities.

Dr. Phillips also painted a stark picture of the narrowing window for action. Ignoring the escalating threat posed by climate change, and by the unaccountable corporations driving the crisis, risks pushing global temperatures beyond the critical goal of 1.5ºC, she said. Such a failure would be not only an ecological catastrophe, but also a profound failure of our legal systems, potentially undermining the legitimacy of human rights law and its institutions.

Our legal partners at Greenpeace International then argued that states have a primary responsibility to enact and enforce laws and regulations, which means requiring businesses to respect human rights—including by swiftly and sharply reducing global warming emissions.

Potential precedents

The court’s task is formidable. It must navigate a complex landscape of varied vulnerabilities and capacities among the nations under its jurisdiction. Yet, its role is crucial. As the court’s president Nancy Hernández López noted, the outcome of these hearings could profoundly influence regional and global approaches to climate justice, ensuring that no voice is silent and no opinion lacks legitimacy.

The IACHR’s hearings are not merely procedural; they are a beacon of hope for those most at risk. As the world watches, the decisions made here could set a precedent for how we address the legal and moral obligations of climate change mitigation and compensation globally.

This is the first of three sessions for hearings before the IACHR. As we continue to monitor these hearings, one thing is clear: climate justice is not just about legal battles, it’s about securing a sustainable and equitable future for all. I’m grateful that the court has made the space to hear from experts and communities impacted by its rulings. We will keep you posted as this decision, and other climate advisory requests, move through the courts.

Read part 1 of this blog post series on the White House’s initiative.

In a previous blog post about the federal Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) recent report about how the White House can better implement its Justice40 initiative, I noted that the GAO should have said the program needs much more transparency at multiple levels. That is the first of three fixes that I and my former colleague and senior official at the EPA Matthew Tejada agree should have been recommended.

As former EPA officials in the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, we had a front row seat to how Justice40, a landmark initiative born via President Biden’s executive order 14008, was rolled out.

There are two more fixes we think the GAO should have recommended to the White House to strengthen implementation of Justice40.

What the GAO should have said Fix #2: Appoint OMB as the lead White House entity for Justice40 oversight.

GAO’s recommendations treated each component of the EOP as equal. Both Matthew Tejada and I wish they had gone further to point out that no initiative as potentially ambitious and transformative as Justice40 can be successful without clear decision-making authority from the White House and an effective structure to engage executive branch agencies that have likewise committed the necessary staff and budget.

In the case of Justice40, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Climate Policy Office (CPO) each have co-equal roles, given their various policy mandates. This has resulted in significant delays across key decisionmakers, as pointed out by GAO.

“The Equitable and Just National Climate Forum (EJNCF) [of which UCS is a part] got it right on the money in recommending that the lead entity for oversight of the implementation of Justice40 should be OMB, especially now that they received $25 million through the Inflation Reduction Act,” Matthew said to me.

OMB can ensure durability of these goals across administrations if they commit to addressing the GAO critique of enhancing and improving coordination with EJ leaders appointed to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (WHEJAC), led by CEQ.

Clarifying leadership could also greatly help to cure another common critique in GAO’s report—lack of coordination with and activation of the newly-constituted Interagency Council on EJ (EJ IAC). Clear leadership, authority, and focus from one office in the White House would empower the political and career leads from each agency to quickly and effectively bring ideas from their agencies to shape the initiative through the EJ IAC.

GAO also noted the lack of process for systematically accepting agency feedback (p. 40). For example, because Justice40 implementation guidance was so long in coming and had to move through so many decision-making centers in the White House, the initiative has been slow to adapt to changing circumstances, such as the expansion of Justice40-covered programs after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Similar delays and confusion have been met with providing guidance to define disadvantaged communities when the IRA gave that authority individually to the leads of different agencies. The result is that agency officials had to wait for new guidance documents that they didn’t always have a hand in shaping.

Moving forward, the hope would be for the EJ IAC to not just be part of a more responsive and clear chain of communication but also relied upon for crafting the policies that they will then in turn be charged with implementing across the different programs at their agencies.

OMB has the horsepower to look across the executive branch and dive into programs, methodologies, and reporting. CEQ has the clear authority to lead the WHEJAC and EJ IAC. Establishing clear authority across these critical areas and aligning the efforts of the different offices, rather than mixing their actions and authorities together, would be a dramatic improvement.

Fix #3: Only use the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool for its designed intent.

The final fix for Justice40 I recommend is to make clear what the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) should be used for and, just as importantly, not used for.

CEJST represents a huge step forward in the use of equity-centric tools across the United States. Despite the word “screening” in its name, CEJST was not built to be just another “screening” tool. Executive Order 14008 laid out a specific policy question for CEJST—if at least 40% of the benefits were to go to certain places based on the intersection of climate, economic, and environmental injustices, where are those places? CEJST was custom built to provide that answer.

What has happened since CEJST was released? There was the predictable confusion amongst many people; citizens, government officials, industry representatives—all asking which tool to use. CEJST started showing up in inappropriate policy arenas, such as identifying potentially disproportionately-impacted communities during permitting processes under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act. CEJST was not built for a host of analytical screening purposes and should not be used as such. There are other tools—EPA’s Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJScreen) and NEPAssist, and Department of Health and Human Service’s EJ Index—that were.

CEJST was built to specifically identify which parts of the country should receive at least 40% of the benefits of those 400-plus government programs. As Matthew says, “CEJST was tuned to include somewhere less than 40% of the country, or else what’s the point? It wasn’t built to capture all of the communities that deserve government benefits. It wasn’t designed to show which communities might need and deserve certain attention or specific resources more than other communities based upon compounding, or cumulative, challenges. It wasn’t designed to be used in permitting, rulemaking, compliance, emergency response and recovery, clean-ups…the list goes on. And it certainly wasn’t designed to provide an answer for which disadvantaged communities should receive 100% of a program’s benefits, which is exactly what numerous Inflation Reduction Act programs have been statutorily mandated to achieve.”

Then there’s the issue of spatial resolution

For you data geeks out there, like me, pay attention to this: the Census Bureau has a tool for using populations and land masses, starting from the smallest geographies, actual blocks, then block groups, then tracts, and so forth. Most analysts prefer using the smallest geographical unit possible because they can get much more granular in their understanding of community-scale needs and disparities. Because of CEJST’s reliance on census tract geographies rather than census block groups, many disadvantaged communities that happen to be near other more affluent areas are averaged out and don’t make the cut for Justice40’s threshold. This happens when disadvantaged census block groups in heavily populated areas are surrounded by more affluent neighbors, or rural disadvantaged communities get averaged in with affluent resort areas that are not particularly close but included in the vast bounds of rural census tracts.

Sometimes even at the block group level, getting to community needs is difficult but less perilous than operating at the tract scale.  

CEJST estimates that approximately 33% of the country’s population lives in areas labeled as disadvantaged; that means 40% of benefits is a meaningful number as compared to the target populations and geographies. It is not the be-all and end-all to identifying every disadvantaged community in the United States.

In that way, CEJST is a simple but effective tool which will go a long way toward advancing progress if used appropriately, even with the clearly articulated and well-put criticism of its exclusion of race and ethnicity. There are important opportunities to improve it in future iterations.

Matthew says, “if CEJST is used as a simple but powerful lever, it can move our government—not just the Justice40 programs and not only 40% of the benefits of those programs—because it forces civil servants at all levels of government to contend with issues of equity, history, disinvestment, and their own singular decision-making in incredibly powerful and tangible ways. Once you start that process, it ripples out across the rest of government action and thinking.”

Coupled with fixing the reporting, transparency, and accountability issues we’ve noted are still problematic within Justice40, using CEJST will enable those ripples to swell into waves. With an all-of-government approach, we can learn how to think about equity issues, use data tools, and then make different policy decisions about how government works to achieve a better and more equitable result.

CEJST and Justice40 don’t have to dictate all of those results and specify every community destination. Trying to do so only limits the scope of what it can achieve, and it will also guarantee that many deserving communities will be left out of the change we collectively seek.

There is no doubt that Justice40 and CEJST are driving significant change across federal government. As long-serving EPA leaders, we saw the difference. It was clear, necessary, and almost instantaneous. The EJ truism holds here as in so many other places—we’ve come a long way but have a long, long way yet to go. There’s so much left to be done to solidify the wins of Justice40 in the face of skepticism and growing political hostility towards both equity and climate issues.

In this post and the previous I have provided a few ideas to help institutionalize practices that would allow agencies to showcase and scale the changes. What would be not just unfortunate but also tragic is if we fail to learn from the early struggles of Justice40’s historic policy and fail to support the efforts emerging from the Inflation Reduction Act’s absolutely unprecedented funding amounts. If done right, Justice40 can continue to achieve the lasting, meaningful, systemic, and structural changes that so many have spent their lives fighting to achieve.

What else should the GAO have said in its report about Justice40? Read my previous blog post to learn more.

Since the inception of the environmental justice (EJ) movement, EJ leaders have called for accountability by the federal government for meeting the needs of communities that for generations have been systematically excluded, environmentally overburdened, and starved of much needed and deserved resources.

The federal government has responded in many ways over the ensuing decades, from the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) original 1983 study on the siting of hazardous waste facilities, to President Clinton’s 1994 executive order 12898 on environmental justice, to then-Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson’s ambitious Plan EJ 2014 strategic plan.

While valiantly cultivating the bureaucratic soil, none of these efforts offered the promise of holding government accountable when making one of the most fundamental decisions of governance—the distribution of benefits.

President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, born in 2021 via executive order 14008, is the first meaningful attempt in decades to get at that basic function of government and prioritize the needs of communities that have been left behind for far too long.

The Justice40 Initiative’s goal is for 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments to flow to disadvantaged communities that have been historically marginalized and overburdened. Taken together with other important equity and justice mandates, such as those included in additional executive orders dedicated to environmental justice and racial equity, we now are seeing the most comprehensive set of presidential equity and justice actions since the 1960s.

Yet more needs to be done to ensure the bold commitments of the past three years take root and grow into the systemic and structural changes our country and its most oppressed communities deserve. Because of the clarity of its goal and sharp focus on where and to whom benefits should flow during a time of historic government investment, the success of Justice40 will in many ways be the measuring stick of the Biden administration’s equity and justice efforts.  

A recent Government Accountability Office report made a series of recommendations to strengthen Justice40 implementation, including five recommendations to each of the different White House units (aka Executive Office of the President, or EOP) that are leading Justice40 implementation. Those units are the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Climate Policy Office (CPO). The reason GAO’s recommendations matter is that agencies and the White House need to respond formally to their recommendations, while those of us in the public and nonprofit sector are easier to ignore.

I am a former EPA official who worked in the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and have over 20 years of experience in equity-centered public service. I have some insights and I also encourage readers to delve into the expert insights and recommendations from the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), which are rich and valuable.

Here’s what I think about the GAO’s report about Justice40:

What the GAO report on Justice40 got right Having a clear whole-of-government focus on Justice40 has been a crucial catalyst for action.

GAO pointed this out in findings from its interviews with federal and nonfederal officials, saying “some respondents (7 of 18) wrote that the interim guidance was useful for developing implementation plans because it established clear deadlines for taking action. For example, one respondent stated that the ‘aggressive’ deadlines set in the interim guidance made implementing the Justice40 Initiative the program’s main priority.” (p. 33)    

Indeed, in a few short years, the focus on Justice40 has resulted in the creation of numerous new programs across many agencies to improve community engagement and advance environmental justice. This has been accompanied by a significant increase in related levels of staff commitment and expertise, such as new EJ offices at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). The US Department of Energy (DOE) opened its doors to the Office of Energy Justice and Equity and set up numerous programs funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to expand community engagement.

Each institutional change gave agencies like EPA, where the first Office of Environmental Justice was opened in 1992, more and stronger collaborators across the federal family to work alongside. Thanks to the historic support for EJ and personal commitment of EPA Administrator Michael Regan, EPA significantly increased the heft of its EJ program by aligning with its external civil rights program and reorganizing to create a national program (a big step up from the previous solo office) with a senate-confirmed Assistant Administrator position to head the new Office of EJ and External Civil Rights.  

GAO also shared important recommendations around improving transparency and accountability, including through better use of its scorecard, in order to allow Congress and the public to hold the executive branch accountable for upholding Justice40. See, p. 52 and p. 43 of the report.

Very importantly, the Equitable and Just National Climate Forum (EJNCF) has noted concerns about including racial demographic data to improve the scorecard’s efficacy, saying “As it currently stands, the information provided in the Phase One Scorecard does not include any racial demographic data that would allow verification of the extent to which agencies have ensured racial equity in their work.” EJNCF has also provided recommendations in response to the one-year anniversary of the EJ executive order 14096 on April 21, 2024.

What I wish the GAO had also said

I wish the GAO had also said this in its recommendations:

Fix #1: Accountability will only happen with public transparency at multiple levels.

Unfortunately, the way Justice40 is set up right now, it will not provide transparency on a program-by-program basis across federal agencies. With nearly 470 programs in the mix, the White House communicated through its original guidance that public reporting will be neither program-by-program nor agency-by-agency, but rather will roll up the results of multiple “buckets” of programs into overall government-wide totals.

This is problematic.

Matthew Tejada, the senior official in charge of EPA’s EJ program from 2013-2023, shared with me that “failing to include some mechanism for transparency at multiple levels undermines the goal of Justice40 in several respects. First, it eliminates the opportunity for individuals and organizations inside and outside of government to look at single programs of interest and monitor their success in providing at least 40% of benefits to disadvantaged communities.”

He’s right. By rolling programs together, it is possible and perhaps even likely that big-ticket, large-scale programs eclipse the success of smaller, more targeted programs. For example, Solar for All is a $7 billion program targeted exclusively for low-income solar projects. This large infusion to disadvantaged communities coming from EPA could mask the hard-fought efforts of many other smaller renewable energy programs from multiple federal agencies that are working to move the needle above 40%.

Further, there’s another more pernicious issue of whether to include certain programs in analyses of benefits at all. DOE’s hydrogen hubs (H2Hubs) program selected seven projects for award negotiations in the fall of 2023. The projects include disadvantaged parts of Appalachia and Houston where EJ communities (and the WHEJAC) are contesting any approaches, including hydrogen facilities, that prolong reliance on fossil fuel-based infrastructure. Including this program in the denominator of any overall calculation is critical, since the H2Hub program was included in the list of J40-covered programs. However, also including it in the numerator would mean each H2Hub could dwarf tens of smaller Justice40 investments in the same bucket of programs. The way around this is to encourage J40 data to be shared in a disaggregated way so that program administrators and the public can independently evaluate the effect of these programs.

Matthew also said, “This approach sets the White House up for what is a potentially impossible task —coming up with some defensible means for mathematically aggregating benefits from a multitude of programs with varied benefits, measured at different scales and units, without showing the individual program-by-program numbers.”

He’s right again. We need a way to understand the bigger picture, but it cannot come at the cost of transparency and accountability for individual programs and agencies. Allowing analysts within and outside of government to see data and benefits methodologies at various scales is critical for this outcome.

Even if the White House redirects the executive branch to change its reporting structure to include a program or agency basis, there would still be data hurdles to surmount. Many federal programs do not currently track exactly where their appropriated funds touch down on the ground (i.e., at the local neighborhood, individual level, or depending on the funding stream). For some programs, this is the result of historic systemic inequities baked into programs (e.g., transportation formula funding) that have never been concerned about justifying where taxpayer dollars flow beyond the political wins of road-widening projects. In some cases, the fix is easy: programs should be required to track and report on the final destination of funds, and not just to the state agency or regional planning body that initially receives them. Matthew and I recognize there are reporting questions that would need to be sorted through with the support of OMB, who shepherds the Paperwork Reduction Act. And of course, wrestling with state and local agencies’ capacity and willingness to share information with the federal government would also need to be addressed.

In the case of some programs whose funding goes through multiple transactions, this might not be possible. Matthew thinks that’s ok. He says, “We should figure out which programs those are and push them to find an alternative means for tracking where the money will be spent in a way that is not so burdensome as to overwhelm the usefulness of the resources provided.”

Before the end of 2024, basic information that tags to geography across the board needs to be made, so that agencies can start reporting in a way that allows communities and civil society—not to mention the civil servants in charge of these programs—to monitor progress and support implementation. And, like EJNCF has advocated, we should request them to provide more technical assistance to navigate the complex programs so the data can be used meaningfully.

If this could be done quickly, more agencies would have the institutional capacity built up to implement programs with an equity lens as a matter of course.

What else should the GAO have said in its report about Justice40? Read my next post to learn more.

Leading up to Earth Day this year, I’ve been reflecting on the meaning and purpose of the annual celebration. Earth Day began under the Nixon Administration in 1970 as a day to support environmental protection and has grown to include nations and communities around the world in appreciation of Mother Earth.  

Of course, like any other holiday, there have been instances of co-optation where big polluters seek to cover up their dirty deeds and greenwash their image by sponsoring Earth Day festivities. But I’m looking to celebrate the positives.

I’ve been to my fair share of trash cleanups, concerts, and craft fairs, but this year there’s one big policy I want to focus on that I think deserves some credit on Earth Day: the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Earth Day and the IRA go hand in hand

Don’t get me wrong, I still plan on showing some love for the planet this Earth Day, but I’m also grateful that the US was able to pass the IRA in 2022 because it represents the single biggest investment in cutting heat-trapping emissions in history (here’s to you, Mother Earth). This super important bill is expected to result in $780 billion to $1 trillion in investments over 10 years that will drive down emissions, improve public health, and help protect the environment on our planet for future generations.

It’s also worth noting that while the IRA will make a massive difference in our fight against climate change, it alone won’t be enough to help us meet the US’s Paris Climate Agreement commitment of reducing its economy-wide emissions by 50% to 52% by 2030. Together with existing state and federal policies including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the IRA puts the US on a trajectory of about 34% reductions (with recent estimates ranging from 27% to 42%). And even that’s not a given.… How the programs and tax credits are carried out by federal and state agencies can affect the overall progress that can be made as a result of the IRA.

At UCS, we’re working to ensure effective and equitable implementation of key clean energy and clean transportation provisions. The IRA also includes some less than ideal fossil-fuel supporting incentives that will need continued monitoring .

To realize the IRA’s goals, implementation is key

Now, like anything else passed by Congress, the devil will be in the details, or in this case, the implementation of all the programs established under the IRA.

There’s an unprecedented amount of federal funding coming down the pike. This unprecedented amount of federal funding has mobilized nonprofit and community groups around the nation to help ensure the benefits flow to the people and places that deserve them. One of our jobs at UCS is to help make sure it winds up benefiting communities most in need. And those needs are great. Many Americans are still struggling to make ends meet while prices remain high. At the same time, energy burdens make utility bills unaffordable for many. Thankfully, the IRA aims to meet the White House’s Justice 40 goals of delivering at least 40% of the benefits of these investments to disadvantaged communities.

So, what are we doing to help?  UCS is working with coalition partners, our expert staff, and our extensive network of over 20,000 scientists and technical experts to help with the unprecedented need for technical assistance and grant reviews. Here are a few specific examples from UCS’s Climate and Energy team:

• Community Change Grants: $2 billion grant funding opportunity to support local community efforts to build climate resiliency and adaptation; mitigate climate and health risks from urban heat islands, extreme heat, and wildfire events; support investments in low- and zero-emission technologies and related infrastructure; and expand workforce development to reduce climate-warming emissions and other air pollutants. UCS is partnering with the Environmental Protection Network to help connect our network of experts to community groups looking to apply for funding. (If you’re a scientist or expert reading this and want to help, we’re hosting a webinar on Thursday May 2nd where you can learn more about the opportunity and how you can offer assistance.)
• Solar for All: The $7 billion provision that is included in the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund seeks to expand access to solar for low-income communities with all funds required to be used to enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from residential distributed solar. UCS has submitted letters of support for Illinois, Maine, and Massachusetts applying to the Solar for All program and we are continuing to meet with officials in Michigan to help influence the program design and outreach should that state be awarded funding. We are also working with GreenLatinos to determine community needs and questions around Solar for All and planning to offer additional resources to those community members once the awardees are announced (expected sometime in April 2024).
• Low-Income and Energy Communities Bonus Tax Credits: These “bonus” tax credits offer a 10% additional credit for projects located in energy communities (communities defined as places affected by refinery/coal mine/power plant closures), a 10% credit for renewable energy projects located in low-income communities or tribal lands, AND a 20% bonus for renewable energy projects that are installed on low-income residential buildings or that deliver at least 50% of power to low-income households. UCS is working with our coalition partners to ensure these credits are being properly considered as part of our state utility regulatory work. As utilities develop their long-term resource plans for meeting energy demand, we will track the proceedings and give comments and testimony if needed to encourage adequate and accurate consideration of the benefits these credits could have on communities and the grid.
• Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program: the EJ Thriving Communities Grantmaking program has established 11 grant makers to distribute $550 million in small grants. UCS is partnering with the RE-AMP network, one of the selected grant makers, to help target grant outreach in rural communities in the Midwest using the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, and to address extreme heat threats to outdoor workers with data from our Too Hot to Work report.
• EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grants: This $5 billion program administered by the EPA aims to reduce climate warming emissions and other air pollution. It is made up of $4.75 billion for implementation grants and $250,000 for planning grants. Applicants submitted initial priority climate action plans, or PCAPs, in March, and they must submit comprehensive climate action plans by mid-2025. UCS submitted comments with recommendations on the PCAPs of Massachusetts, Illinois, Maine, and Michigan, and will continue to engage on the implementation of this grant program with the forthcoming comprehensive climate action plans.
• UCS is actively working to ensure tax credits passed or modified as part of the IRA are rigorously implemented to minimize potential for harm, such as with the Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit (45V) and the Carbon Capture and Sequestration Tax Credit (45Q).

How is the IRA impacting people and the planet so far?

It’s important to note that many of the programs established or expanded under the IRA are yet to be established, and there is a lot of money yet to be allocated. But, so far there’s a lot to like.

A recent report from the US Department of the Treasury found most of the investments from the IRA so far have gone to underserved and frontline communities.

And MIT and the Rhodium Group have noted the following:

• 81% of clean investment dollars announced since the Inflation Reduction Act passed have been for projects in counties with below-average weekly wages.
• 86% of clean investment dollars since the Inflation Reduction Act passed are landing in counties with below-average college graduation rates.
• 70% of clean investment dollars since the Inflation Reduction Act passed are in counties where a smaller share of the population is employed.
• 78% of clean investment dollars since the Inflation Reduction Act passed are in counties with below-average median household incomes.
• The share of clean investment dollars going to low-income counties rose from 68% to 78% when the Inflation Reduction Act passed. 

An updated analysis from US Treasury, including Q3 and Q4 data from 2023, also shows the continued increase in investments going toward these communities, with an additional $2.4 billion going to energy communities through the Energy Community Bonus tax credit (as opposed to $1 billion going to non-energy communities when compared to pre-IRA levels). However, it is worth noting, that analysis from the US Treasury counts all investments, including those that some environmental justice communities don’t consider beneficial.

Interestingly, additional analysis shows that most funding from the IRA is flowing toward Republican-represented Congressional districts, even though not a single Republican voted for the measure.

It’s still too soon to get a good sense of the planetary impacts the IRA will have, but as a big down payment on the US’s contribution to global efforts, the initial outlook is promising. It’s clear we’ve still got a long way to go to limit the worst impacts of climate change and keep planetary warming below 2 degrees, but I for one will be celebrating both our planet, and the IRA this Earth Day. Will you join me?

Earth Day each year marks an opportunity to reflect on how far we have come as a society. Personally, I find it an exhilarating time to be part of the U.S. environmental movement that birthed Earth Day out of outrage over rampant use of toxic chemicals.

To address the global environmental and equity crisis of our generation, in the past three years Congress has passed two significant pieces of legislation advanced by the Biden administration that contain the most climate funding in the nation’s history: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). However, Congress has stubbornly refused to pass legislation that slashes carbon emissions directly. Instead, they have left much of that work to the discretion of the administration, which can only do so much without the say-so of Congress (aka statutory authority).

Is this recent progress significant? Absolutely. Recent executive action taken by the administration, alongside record-breaking milestones and these two pieces of legislation deserve celebrating.

There also are places where we must keep working alongside the public sector to make change that reflects the true scale of the problem. Let’s dig in.

Progress cutting transportation emissions

Transportation is the biggest source of global warming emissions in the US, as well as a major source of dangerous air pollution. Building a cleaner transportation system—one that includes electric vehicles (EVs)—is vital to meeting our climate goals and improving public health and equity.

The EPA issued new standards this year to cut climate-endangering emissions from new passenger cars and light trucks. In concert with state policies and the growing global shift to electrification, these policies should help get more zero-emission vehicles on the road.  

As these new standards bring cleaner vehicles to the market, investments and tax incentives emerging from BIL and IRA will make it easier for US drivers to buy and get around in an EV. That includes tax incentives for buying EVs, whether new or, for the first time, used. It also includes major investments in building new EV charging stations across the country, both in communities and along highway corridors. While EVs are already cleaner over their lifetime than gasoline vehicles, that advantage gets bigger as the grid they’re charged on gets cleaner. Policies to speed up the EV transition go hand in hand with policies to power our electrical system with fewer fossil fuels and more renewable energy.

Of course, investments in vehicle electrification are only part of the solution; people need more clean, accessible ways to get around. Though the climate impact of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is mixed, one of the clearest wins is that it invests over $200 billion in funding to support public transportation and rail, breaking with decades of federal underinvestment in these modes​.

While there’s much more work to be done cutting pollution from the transportation system, these policies move us in the right direction.

Progress protecting people from pollutants

The EPA also has been busy issuing new rules aimed at protecting people from exposure to pollution and toxic chemicals.

• Standards for one of the most common pollutants—fine particulate matter (PM2.5)—had lagged for years as the evidence of the harms of this pollution mounted. In February, EPA issued new, stronger PM2.5 rules.
• Facilities that handle dangerous chemicals pose a risk to workers and neighbors. In March, EPA finalized a new Risk Management Program rule to minimize the impact of chemical disasters.
• This month, for the first time, EPA issued enforceable standards to reduce the danger of PFAS chemicals in drinking water, along with funding for water testing and treatment.  And EPA has finally named PFOA and PFOS as hazardous chemicals, which will help rein in their use and reduce contamination.
• EPA is also addressing the threat of ethylene oxide with long-awaited new rules to reduce ethylene oxide from commercial sterilizers and emissions from chemical manufacturing facilities.
• Since 2021, EPA also has introduced a range of new rules that will improve public health. These include standards for methane emissions from oil and gas operations, a strong lead and copper rule supported by funding for water system upgrades authorized by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a ban on chlorpyrifos contamination in food, and a long-awaited ban on asbestos. They’ve also issued a new Equity Action Plan that can help incorporate cumulative impacts into future rulemaking.  

It’s also encouraging to see efforts to protect expert federal staff from political interference, making sure we can all benefit from the best available science. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has introduced a model scientific integrity policy and agencies across government are at work designing their own scientific integrity guidelines. Meanwhile the Office of Personnel Management has finalized new civil service rules to ensure federal employees are protected from politically motivated firings.

None of these rules is perfect on its own, but taken together and combined with other complementary policies, they represent a serious effort to address the biggest threats to our health, our ecosystem, and our climate.

Progress investing in clean energy, clean air, and environmental justice

In 2022, Congress passed President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—the biggest climate action in US history. The legislation is galvanizing the nation’s transition to clean energy by helping to clean up our electricity, transportation, and industry, and make energy use in homes and buildings cleaner and more energy efficient.

So far, more than $53 billion has already been allocated from the law to advance environmental justice, deliver cleaner air, and tackle climate pollution. This includes $6.9 billion for tackling climate pollution, $270 million for cleaner air, and $45.7 billion for environmental justice.

When it comes to environmental justice, the IRA, together with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, provide $126 billion for more than 28 federal programs that are helping to reduce global warming emissions and disproportionate amounts of pollution in low-income communities and communities of color. The legislation is also helping to reduce the unequal household energy burdens and climate risks that these communities bear.

Progress stalling fossil fuel expansion

In January, the Biden administration correctly delayed a decision on whether to approve a massive new fossil gas export terminal in southwest Louisiana pending a review of its potential climate and environmental impacts. UCS believes that proper accounting of these harms will make it clear that this project, and others like it in the United States, are not in the public interest.

With the climate crisis rapidly worsening and given long-standing environmental injustices from the production and use of fossil fuels, the US must chart a path toward a fast, fair phaseout of polluting fuels and ramp up clean energy solutions.

Progress cutting power sector carbon emissions

The power sector is the second largest source of global warming emissions in the U.S. and also a major contributor of traditional air pollution. We may see progress in this area very soon because next week the administration is expected to finalize a regulation that requires existing coal-fired power plants—the largest carbon emitter in the power sector—to significantly reduce their carbon emissions and future natural gas plants to release limited amounts of carbon.

The administration will release a regulation limiting carbon and other pollutants from existing natural gas plants later.

Since the key to reducing U.S. global warming emissions is powering everything, including vehicles and buildings, with clean electricity from the grid, these rules are critical.

Progress transitioning to renewable energy

In 2024, US renewables likely will set lots of new records. The US solar industry likely will handily blow past its (record-breaking) 2023 tally for installations in a single year. Solar is breaking records for generation almost daily, from coast to coast and in between, and wind has been notching up its own records.

Offshore wind will have a banner year in 2024, with two new projects that will bring the US total to enough capacity to generate the equivalent of more than a half million Northeast households’ electricity use.

Solar and wind together, which in spring 2023 hit a new high for portion of total US monthly generation, may break their combined record, too. Add in hydroelectric and geothermal power, and renewable energy could account for fully one-quarter of US electricity—double what they contributed a decade ago!

Where does all this action put us?

There is no question there is much more that must be done, not only to achieve the United States’ climate goals of cutting economywide heat-trapping emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions no later than 2050, but also to further reduce traditional pollution.

Let’s celebrate the truly incredible progress that has been made to date. The progress we’ve seen from the administration and federal agencies in recent years was a long time coming, the result of thousands of people working together to make significant, lasting environmental change.

This administration has made historic progress on multiple fronts, and traditional environmental groups, science organizations, and environmental justice communities are exercising their individual and collective power in ways not previously seen. As a former federal official and a current advocate for environmental justice, I am glad to pause and take a beat to acknowledge how far we’ve come before we put the pedal back to the metal.

Above: Lahaina, Hawai’i after the devastating August 2023 wildfire that killed more than 100 people and destroyed 2,700 homes.

Last year, I wrote that fossil fuel companies made billions of dollars in profit during 2022 as people around the world suffered billions of dollars in damage from climate and weather related disasters. The climate impacts people around the world experience are connected to the fossil fuel industry’s record-breaking profits:

“The profits made by the oil and gas majors come at the direct expense of all of us and our shared planet. These companies continue to extract more fossil fuels from the ground, lobby for their interests, deceive and misinform the public about climate change, and build new infrastructure to lock us into this continual cycle of extraction, combustion, and the dire consequences it brings. They need to be held accountable for these actions.”

Now that all the numbers are in for 2023, we can say that, tragically, this trend continues. Last year was one of extremes, yet again breaking the record for hottest year with an annual temperature 1.48°C above the preindustrial average. Records were smashed in terms of extreme air and ocean temperatures; people around the world experienced wildfires, floods, severe storms, and other disasters. While fossil fuel industry profits were down from their 2022 earnings, these companies still pulled in a dizzying amount of money in 2023, with the combined profits of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP totaling over $100 billion. The CEO of Chevron bragged about the company’s record profits and fossil fuel production levels, saying: “In 2023, we returned more cash to shareholders and produced more oil and natural gas than any year in the company’s history.” The comment shows an atrocious disregard for the fossil fuel industry’s harmful impacts on the world and for global efforts to confront climate change and prioritize human rights.

US disasters and disaster response

In 2023, the United States suffered 28 separate weather- and climate-related disasters, the highest number of such events recorded in a single year that each caused over $1 billion in economic damages. Taken together, these disasters caused $92.9 billion in damage. This monetary damage is just a crude measure that doesn’t fully account for the loss of life, cultural heritage destroyed, trauma endured, and other types of damage that cannot be described in economic terms. These calamities tragically caused the deaths of 492 people. That figure doesn’t capture the full extent of the trauma experienced by survivors of these disasters, many of whom face myriad difficulties in recovering emotionally, physically, and financially long after the time when the news cycle has shifted away from the aftermath of catastrophe. 

One of these billion-dollar disasters was the wildfire that devastated Lahaina, Hawai’i. That fire alone killed more than 100 people, destroyed important cultural heritage sites and 2,700 homes, and severely impacted local ecology. The fire also left toxic ash in its wake, the disposal of which has proven problematic. While the role of climate change hasn’t been quantified for this fire, we know that climate change is making wildfires more frequent and severe. The history of colonization that still shapes the land to this day also played a role. While the media had only limited coverage of the role of fossil fuels in creating the conditions for such an unusual fire, Maui County is suing fossil fuel producers for deceiving the public about climate change harms they knew their products would cause. The lawsuit notes, for example, that wildfire season is no longer a season, but rather a year-round struggle. Unfortunately, as things currently stand, the fossil fuel companies likely won’t have to pay for any of the recovery efforts from the devastation in Lahaina.

In the United States, recovery efforts after disasters are paid for in part by funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). But with a growing number of disasters and the rising cost of recovery, FEMA does not have enough money to meet the growing need. Vastly underfunded, FEMA has relied on Congress for emergency supplemental funding in recent years to shrink its multi-billion dollar deficit. As my colleague Shana Udvardy wrote, this funding deficit means FEMA has to preserve limited funds for immediate life-saving needs while stalling projects to help with recovery from disasters that happened in previous years. Such deferrals in Congressional appropriations for disaster recovery most severely impact underserved people, including people who are unhoused, displaced, and historically disadvantaged.

Disasters and disaster response around the world

Major climate and weather disasters occurred across the world last year, including the record-breaking cyclone Freddy which devastated parts of Mozambique and Malawi, catastrophic flooding in Libya, severe floods and drought in Kenya, and many more. Thousands of people were impacted by these events and face a long road to recovery.

Global efforts to assist in this recovery are desperately needed and movement is starting to happen. At COP28, the long-awaited loss and damage fund was operationalized. The purpose of this fund is to provide compensation to those impacted by disasters. While operationalizing the fund is a positive step, the funds pledged so far by nations are severely lacking, with a paltry $400 million in the fund so far. This is a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed as climate change continues to make the world less safe. The United States has pledged $17.5 million—an embarrassingly low sum from the world’s largest historic emitter and the nation where many of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies are headquartered.

Climate Analytics presented a new analysis putting the need for pledges to the loss and damage fund alongside profits of the world’s largest oil and gas producers. Their research shows that, in just over three decades (1985-2018), fossil fuel producers made $30 trillion in profit while a partial accounting of damages linked to their products was $20 trillion. This implies that they could have paid for all the climate damage associated with their products—and still walked away with $10 trillion in profit.

It is clear that people around the world are suffering from the harms of fossil fuels, and it is clear that these companies have the money to compensate for economic damages. The question remains, does the political will exist to bridge these issues?

Profiting off climate damage and conflict

While disaster recovery efforts around the world struggle to keep up with community needs, the fossil fuel industry has money to spare, paying out record amounts to shareholders and conducting stock buybacks. This is occurring simultaneously with rollbacks to their climate pledges as we see them again taking the path they have chosen too many times before to prioritize profit over the planet.

The fossil fuel industry’s high profits come primarily from the world’s continued addiction to its products, which the companies themselves lobby to maintain. But the profits are also buoyed by global conflict. An analysis from Global Witness recently found that, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the five largest fossil fuel companies in the United States and Europe have raked in a quarter of a trillion dollars as the conflict drove up energy prices.

While fossil fuel companies profit, people suffer.

It’s time to change course

In 2023, heat-trapping emissions from fossil fuels increased by 1.1%. This may sound like a small amount. But, in a world where we have known for decades that these emissions need to decline and that we are far off track from meeting emissions reduction goals, any increase represents a threat to life on this planet. Increases in the fossil fuel production that drives climate change will continue to wreak havoc. Such increases will allow fossil fuel companies to continue making jaw-dropping profits while efforts to fund disaster response—such as FEMA in the United States and the loss and damage fund globally—continue to lag far behind what is needed.

The fossil fuel companies have shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted to do the right thing. They have continued to prove this as they walk back their previous climate pledges even as the impacts of record-breaking heat are causing unimaginable damage around the world. This is why we must keep up public pressure toward a fast, fair phaseout of fossil fuels, consider the role of banking in propping up this system, shine a light on the industry’s decades of disinformation and denial, and continue to call for accountability via the courts. Action is needed to ensure that these companies are not allowed to continue to line the pockets of shareholders while people suffer from the devastating impacts their products have caused.

During my first decade in Washington, D.C., my windows were caked with soot from the diesel buses that ran up and down my street. So when I found a place to live just a few blocks away on a street without buses, it was a relief. What I didn’t know is that my health was still at risk—from indoor pollution.

Thanks to a recent test conducted by my local Sierra Club chapter, I learned that the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions from the hoodless gas stove I’ve been cooking on for the last 30 years in my poorly ventilated galley kitchen exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum safe level of 100 parts per billion (ppb) for a one-hour exposure outdoors. (There is no EPA standard for indoor air.)

The highest level the Sierra Club’s air quality monitor detected when my oven and two burners were on was 103 ppb, but even at low concentrations, NO2 irritates the upper respiratory tract and lungs, and longtime exposures have been associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and childhood asthma.

Fortunately, I don’t have COPD and I didn’t contract asthma when I was young, perhaps partly because I grew up in a home with an electric range. But other Washingtonians may not be as lucky. While less than 40 percent of households nationwide cook on a gas stove, 62 percent of households in Washington do. Perhaps not coincidentally, a higher percentage of adults in the District suffer from asthma than in all of the 50 states, and the prevalence of asthma among children under 18 in the nation’s capital is second only to that of kids in Mississippi. 

Certainly, gas stoves are just one source of air pollution in the District. But a study published in the December 2022 issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health calculated that gas stoves are responsible for 12.7 percent of childhood asthma cases in the United States, comparable to the risk posed to children by secondhand smoke. The situation is even worse in some states. According to the study, gas stoves trigger more than 20 percent of childhood asthma cases in California and Illinois, and nearly 19 percent in New York. The study concluded that these childhood asthma cases could have theoretically been prevented by using electric appliances.

I was not fully aware of this issue until roughly a year ago, when I wrote a column about it, and I’ve been working for environmental organizations for 25 years. No doubt, the fact that gas stoves are hazardous to our health was also news to most Americans. What accounts for that?

Fifty Years of Disinformation

It’s no longer a secret that the US oil industry was well aware as early as 1957 that its products threaten the climate. As we now know, fossil fuel companies lied about it for decades to protect their profits. Thanks to exemplary spade work by news organizations and advocacy groups (including my organization, the Union of Concerned Scientists), we have known about the industry’s duplicity for at least 20 years.

Less known is the fact that the gas utility industry has been engaged in the same kind of deceit. According to an October 2023 report by the Climate Investigations Center (CIC), a nonprofit watchdog organization, the industry has been gaslighting us by promoting the idea that “cooking with gas” is a good thing, despite knowing as far back as 1970 that gas stoves pose a threat to public health and the environment.

Now that there is a desperate need to slash global warming emissions worldwide to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, it is critical to rapidly phase out the use of all fossil fuels. That would of course include fossil gas, which consists of 85 to 90 percent methane, a significantly more potent heat-trapping gas than carbon dioxide.

A 2022 study found that gas stoves leak methane, and more than three-quarters of the emissions occurred when the stoves were off. Meanwhile, a 2023 study in Environmental Research Letters concluded that as little as 0.2 percent of gas leaking from the gas production and delivery system would make gas as bad as coal for the climate—and it turns out the leaks are worse than that. The EPA estimates that about 6.5 million metric tons of methane leak from the oil and gas supply chain each year—approximately 1 percent of total gas production—five times more than the 0.2 percent threshold.

In my town, gas accounts for 23 percent of global warming emissions, according to the District’s Department of Energy and the Environment. But gas emissions are likely much higher when accounting for leaks, which are widespread in the Washington metro area system.

Public health also hangs in the balance. Gas stoves, which are in 38 percent of US households, not only emit methane, but also toxic pollutants besides NO2 that are associated with respiratory ailments and cancer. A 2022 study in Environmental Science and Technology detected more than 20 volatile organic compounds, including hexane, toluene and benzene, in unburned stove gas.

In spite of all of the data, the American Gas Association (AGA), the industry’s leading trade group that represents more than 200 investor-owned gas utility companies and their suppliers, contends there is no problem. It maintains that gas stoves are a “minor source” of NO2 and dismisses the mounting evidence that gas stove emissions contribute to asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

Following the Disinformation Playbook

The gas utility industry, which won over the public with its cooking with gas campaign in the 1930s, found itself at a crossroads in the late 1960s when sales of electric ranges outpaced gas stove sales for the first time. In 1969, AGA launched a million-dollar advertising campaign (worth $8.45 million in today’s dollars) in response to recapture the market, which was especially critical given gas stoves function as a “gateway” appliance. If a new home has a gas stove installed, homeowners are more likely to buy other big-ticket gas appliances—a furnace, a water heater, a clothes dryer—which use a lot more gas than a stove.

Just a year later, however, the industry encountered a potentially major obstacle: A study conducted by the government’s National Air Pollution Control Administration found a link between outdoor NO2 exposure and childhood respiratory problems. The lead author of that study, Dr. Carl Shy—who spoke with NPR last fall for an article based on the CIC report—recalled that when he met with gas industry representatives after publishing the study, they conceded that gas stoves emit NO2 and that hood vents were not strong enough to remove it.

Shy’s study provided a shining example of the threat posed by industrial pollution that galvanized public attention in the late 1960s and led to the first Earth Day in April 1970. Given that heightened awareness, a Commerce Department advisory committee of electric and gas utility executives acknowledged at a meeting in the fall of 1970 that their industry needed “to show what they are doing about pollution [and] suggested that the gas industry take a look at the NOx [nitrogen oxides] problem.”

Since then, however, the gas industry—much like the oil industry—has cribbed heavily from the tobacco industry’s playbook to block government regulation by manufacturing doubt about the reality and seriousness of its “NOx problem.” Its main tactics include funding studies that magnify uncertainties in health research to create confusion about the science, running deceptive public relations campaigns, and creating front groups that spread disinformation to protect—and expand—the industry’s market share.

Attacking Credible Science

Since the 1970s, the gas industry has been commissioning epidemiological studies—whose authors often failed to disclose their funding source—that find no association between gas stove emissions and respiratory illness. As the CIC report describes in painstaking detail, these studies were designed to call into question the results of a growing number of studies that have discovered such a link. Many of the private labs and scientists the industry has commissioned, including Battelle Laboratories in the 1970s and the Arthur D. Little consulting firm in the 1980s, had previously done contract work for the tobacco industry for the very same purpose—to poke holes in studies that found that its products are hazardous by insisting that those findings were “inconclusive” or “invalid” and that more research was needed.

This gas industry tactic continues today. Just last year, AGA contracted with Gradient Corporation—a scientific consulting firm with a history of downplaying the health threat posed by toxic substances on behalf of its industry clients—to examine past studies that investigated the link between gas stoves and respiratory problems. Predictably, Gradient’s review, published last December in Global Epidemiology, concluded that the evidence presented in previous studies was insufficient.

Running Misleading PR Campaigns

Funding its own research is just one of the PR tactics the gas industry borrowed from the tobacco industry, the CIC report pointed out. Other tried-and-true tactics it appropriated include publicizing any information showing it in a positive light and disseminating the results of its research to legislators, regulators, journalists, health professionals, and other opinion leaders.

Where did the gas industry pick up the finer points of PR disinformation? From the very same firm that orchestrated Big Tobacco’s campaign in the 1950s and 1960s to sow doubt about the link between smoking and cancer: Hill & Knowlton.

Successful PR campaigns also require advertising, and the gas industry has spent generously. Its 1969 million-dollar ad campaign, for instance—called the “most ambitious advertising and marketing program [it has] ever undertaken”—featured commercials on the three television networks and ads in the top mass-circulation magazines of the day, including Life, Reader’s Digest and Better Homes & Gardens. 

In recent years, the gas utility industry has embraced social media to make its pitch. Working with Porter Novelli and other PR firms, AGA and its sister trade group, the American Public Gas Association (APGA), which represents municipally owned gas utilities, have been paying social media influencers hundreds of thousands of dollars to tout the benefits of gas stoves and other appliances in their posts.

Since May 2018, AGA also has spent more than $113,000 on 440 Facebook and Instagram ads. The Consumer Energy Alliance, whose 350 members include AGA and 78 other fossil fuel producers, suppliers and trade associations, has spent considerably more. Disingenuously calling itself the “voice of the energy consumer,” the group paid more than $700,000 for some 2,300 Facebook and Instagram ads over the same time period. Last August and September, the group posted a series of ads warning that EPA efforts to rein in methane emissions may mean “higher costs for your household” and “unintended consequences for every American family.”

Gas utilities have likewise launched their own social media campaigns. Southwest Gas, for example, sponsors influencers on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to reach potential customers in Arizona, California and Nevada, according to the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that monitors the oil, gas and utility industries. One Southwest Gas-funded TikTok spot featured an influencer in her kitchen parroting gas industry talking points while frying eggs on a gas stovetop. She then went on to rave about her gas clothes dryer and fireplace. The spot did not disclose who paid for it, but the influencer’s Instagram profile included a link to the Southwest Gas website.

Hiding Behind Front Groups

Some local governments across the country have responded to the climate crisis by changing their building codes to ban gas hookups in new homes and buildings. In 2019, Berkeley, California, became the first city to initiate such a ban, but a federal appeals court in San Francisco overturned a lower court decision in a case brought by the California Restaurant Association, ruling that federal energy efficiency standards preempt the ordinance.

Although Berkeley agreed to repeal its ban last month, nearly 100 cities and counties have passed similar ordinances, and another 35 cities and counties now require “electric readiness” so newly constructed buildings can easily switch to all-electric appliances. How the appeals court ruling will affect those initiatives is not clear.  

Not surprisingly, AGA applauded the court decision, calling it a “huge step” toward helping the nation “continue on a path to achieving our energy and environmental goals.”

Besides getting a favorable ruling in what may prove to be a pivotal case, gas utilities have succeeded in lobbying legislators in at least 24 states to pass laws blocking cities and counties from banning or restricting new gas hookups. Likewise, they have been busy shoring up their markets. In addition to paying social media influencers to hawk gas appliances, gas utilities operating in 17 states have been offering builders cash and free vacations to install gas appliances in new homes, according to a December 2023 Guardian investigation.

At least partly in response to the Berkeley gas ban, gas utilities in more than a dozen states also have set up front groups to promote gas as “clean, reliable and affordable,” denigrate renewable energy, and oppose gas bans and other climate solutions, the Energy and Policy Institute has reported. Southern California Gas Company, for instance, surreptitiously launched a phony grassroots group called Californians for Balanced Energy Solutions in 2019. New Jersey Gas, New Jersey Natural Gas, and the Newark-based Public Service Enterprise Group joined forces with local business associations to create Affordable Energy for New Jersey in 2020. And in 2022, Atmos Energy, Black Hills Energy, Summit Utilities, and Xcel Energy were among the founders of Coloradans for Energy Access.

Since May 2018, 15 of these state and regional front groups spent $3.6 million on more than 14,000 Facebook and Instagram ads. The top spender, Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, paid more than $1 million for some 2,000 ads. Founded in 2020 with a war chest of more than $10 million, its members include the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America; gas pipeline companies Kinder Morgan, TC Energy, and Williams Companies; liquefied natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy; and Southern Company, owner of gas utilities in Georgia, Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia.

The result of all this activity? Notwithstanding initiatives to ban new gas hookups, the industry’s 50-year disinformation campaign has thus far paid off. The federal government has yet to set a stringent standard for toxic gas stove emissions, and the percentage of new single-family homes across the country with an installed gas stove has jumped from less than 30 percent in the 1970s to nearly 50 percent in 2021.

Federal Agencies Fail to Protect the Public

The federal government has been aware of gas stove pollution issues for decades. Remember, that 1970 study identifying a link between outdoor NO2 exposure and respiratory problems in schoolchildren that so alarmed the gas industry was conducted by the National Air Pollution Control Administration, which predated the EPA. Throughout the following decades, epidemiologists worldwide continued to find an association between gas stove emissions and respiratory illnesses, as documented by the CIC report. In addition, some clinical trials examining the impact of NO2 on human volunteers under controlled conditions found pronounced increases in “airway resistance” even at low levels of NO2 exposure. Regardless, industry-funded studies have generated enough controversy over the conclusions of government and independent studies to hold regulators at bay. The EPA finally introduced a much-delayed 1-hour exposure limit for outdoor NO2 in 2010, but there is still no comparable standard for indoor exposure.

The most recent attempt to address toxic gas stove emissions at the federal level came in January 2023, when Richard Trumka Jr., one of five members of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), touched off a firestorm of protest. He said his agency, which regulates dangerous household products, should consider banning new gas stoves, calling them “a hidden hazard.”

The blowback, mainly from Republicans on Capitol Hill, was immediate. “Democrats are coming for your kitchen appliances,” warned Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton. “I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove,” exclaimed Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician. “If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands.”

Two days later, CPSC Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric issued a statement clarifying the agency’s position, explaining that the agency is not planning a ban but is investigating ways to curb toxic stove-related emissions. In March 2023, Trumka followed through, issuing a “request for information” (RIF) on gas stove emissions and possible solutions, a potential first step in regulating the appliances. In the RIF announcement, he pointed out that it was “not the first time CPSC has considered the health effects of chronic exposure to emissions from home appliances, particularly nitrogen dioxide.” He listed five examples, from 1982 to 2017, when the agency took up the topic, but each time it refrained from issuing a gas stove regulation.

Supporters of CPSC taking action often cited the December 2022 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) study that found that 12.7 percent of childhood asthma cases in the United States “is attributable to gas stove use.” In rebuttal, AGA and APGA cited a 2013 Lancet study investigating the association between different cooking fuels and childhood asthma in 47 countries. The study found that open fire cooking increased the prevalence of asthma, but failed to find an asthma link with gas.

However, according to a co-author of that Lancet study, environmental epidemiologist Bert Brunekreef, the study is an outlier. “You can always find a study that doesn’t find an effect,” he told E&E News in January 2023, “but you have to look at the combined effect of all the studies to reach a conclusion.” The way AGA cited it, he added, is “not a good use of our study.” 

Brunekreef also pointed out that the December 2022 IJERPH study linking asthma to gas stoves is “entirely based on” a 2013 meta-analysis he co-authored that reviewed more than 40 research papers. It found that, in “children, gas cooking increases the risk of asthma and indoor NO2 increases the risk of current wheeze.”  

Regardless, AGA sent CPSC a 97-page comment that dismissed Brunkreef’s 2013 meta-analysis and cited his anomalous 2013 Lancet study to bolster its argument.

By the time CPSC closed its comment period on gas stoves in May of last year, it had received more than 9,000 comments. About 30 percent of them were apparently generated by a template letter AGA promoted in ads on Facebook, according to the Energy and Policy Institute. The sample letter, the group said, cited Brunekreef ‘s 2013 Lancet study.

There is no way to gauge how much influence AGA’s campaign has had, but since last May, there has been no word from the agency. When contacted recently, a CPSC spokesperson said that “no regulatory action is planned, and any such action would require a vote by the full commission, which has not expressed support for any regulation.”

A federal agency did issue a new regulation for gas stoves recently, but it was the Department of Energy—not the CPSC—and it focused on reducing energy use, not toxic emissions.

In late January, the DOE—which is required by law to periodically update appliance efficiency standards—announced a relatively modest new energy-efficiency regulation for new gas and electric stoves. The standards, which will go into effect in 2028, will affect only 3 percent of gas stoves because 97 percent already meet them today. The standards will have a bigger impact on electric stoves. Nearly a quarter of them currently on the market would not be in compliance.

DOE projects that the standards will save Americans approximately $1.6 billion on their utility bills and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 4 million metric tons over 30 years, roughly equivalent to the combined annual emissions associated with 500,000 US households’ combined energy consumption. But will the new standards appreciably reduce gas stove emissions of NO2, methane or volatile organic compounds? No.

The new standards for both gas and electric stoves will only cut an estimated 7,610 tons of NOx and 34,700 tons of methane over a 30-year period, according to a DOE spokesperson. Those estimates, he said, not only include “end use” emissions from cooking on a gas stove, but also emissions from the entire fuel cycle, from extracting fuel to generating electricity. The agency, he added, did not specifically calculate emission reductions for NO2 or volatile organic compounds.

So, it is still up to the CPSC, which has been investigating the threat posed by indoor NO2 emissions for more than 40 years, to follow the science and do something to ensure new gas stoves are safe. But what about the 47 million US households (including mine) cooking with gas today? We can lower our health risk by opening our windows while cooking, using exhaust fans and air purifiers, and switching to electric kettles, pressure cookers, toaster ovens and microwaves. Or, better yet, we can take advantage of government incentives and replace our gas stoves—and other gas appliances—with electric ones, which would protect our health and the climate at the same time.

In a pivotal week for environmental justice, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France, delivered rulings on three climate cases. A landmark ruling in the Swiss Women’s case criticized governments for not acting in line with science and unequivocally stated that inadequate government action on climate change constitutes a violation of human rights. The other two cases were dismissed due to procedural issues, not due to the merits of the cases. The ECHR rejects as inadmissible approximately 90 percent of all cases brought before it.

Below, I detail some of the key aspects of each case and outline how the courts ruled. Looking at each of these rulings, it’s important to remember what Catarina Mota, one of the Portuguese plaintiffs, aptly notes: a victory in any one of these cases symbolizes a triumph for all, heralding a hopeful step toward holding governments accountable for securing a safe and livable planet for present and future generations.

Victory for Swiss women

A collective of elderly Swiss women challenged their government’s “woefully inadequate” climate efforts, arguing that such negligence exposed them to a heightened risk of death during heatwaves. Invoking their right to life, they demanded accelerated emission cuts to align with the global warming limit of 1.5°C set in the Paris climate agreement. The court’s ruling in this case was groundbreaking, explicitly linking climate change action with human rights protections for the first time. The ruling found that Switzerland’s inadequate climate measures violated the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically the right to private and family life due to the serious adverse effects of climate change. This victory sets a precedent for future climate litigation, affirming that climate action is a legal duty of states under human rights law.

Portuguese youth must first seek justice nationally

In a separate case, six Portuguese youth brought attention to the urgency of addressing climate change through legal avenues. Born between 1999 and 2012, these youths argued that the adverse effects of climate change, such as heatwaves and wildfires, pose a threat to their right to life. They sought to hold Portugal and 32 other countries accountable for not meeting the emissions reduction targets set under the 2015 Paris climate accord. At its  core, this case argued that climate change is a major threat to human rights now and in the future. It sought to highlight that countries must do everything they can to shield people from its harmful effects, as agreed upon in the European Convention on Human Rights. This isn’t just about legal arguments; it’s a push for action based on the global scientific agreement represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) political consensus of the UNFCCC.

The Union of Concerned Scientists wrote a brief for the ECHR in support of the six youth plaintiffs from Portugal in collaboration with the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and Greenpeace International. Our involvement in this case drew attention to the IPCC’s urgent warning: we must cut emissions significantly and quickly to stop the planet from warming more than 1.5°C, a threshold beyond which the dangers to humanity grow sharply.

However, the Court found the application inadmissible, determining that no jurisdiction could be established for the countries outside Portugal since the group had not pursued available legal avenues domestically. This decision underscores the complex legal landscape of international environmental law and human rights, highlighting the challenges faced by claimants in addressing climate change through legal avenues.

French ambitions case lacked legal status

A third case before the court involved Damien Carême, former mayor of the French commune of Grande-Synthe, contesting France’s refusal to adopt more ambitious climate actions. This case sought to evaluate whether inadequate governmental response to climate change constitutes a breach of the right to life by increasing the vulnerability of homes and communities to climate-induced risks. Similar to the Portuguese case, the European court  also ruled this case inadmissible because the applicant moved away from Grande-Synthe and therefore no longer had status under the Convention.

Implications and future outlook

These rulings, particularly the Swiss victory, could significantly impact Europe and potentially influence the United States by setting an international precedent for linking climate change action with human rights protections. All these cases uplifted climate science and the ruling in the Swiss case calls for better integration of robust climate science into national policy. The decisions could well inspire similar legal strategies and increase the global momentum for stronger climate action and accountability. Furthermore, they highlight the potential for climate litigation to inspire similar legal frameworks globally, potentially leading to broader applications against companies for failing to adequately address their climate impacts.

At the Science Hub for Climate Litigation, we stand at the nexus of science and the law. Our work emphasizes the urgency of climate action in the face of undeniable scientific evidence and the stark realities faced by communities worldwide. These cases are not just about legal principles; they address crucial issues about the future of our planet and the need to safeguard human rights in the face of climate change. The Swiss victory shines a spotlight on the judiciary’s vital role in addressing climate change—potentially paving the way for future legal actions to uphold environmental justice and the protection of human rights in the era of climate change.

The longevity of naturally occurring carbon sinks, like those in Earth’s forests, is a key part of all modeled and projected pathways to net-zero. Without the considerable carbon absorption capacity of our lands (and oceans), we’d currently have much more CO2 in the atmosphere and an accelerated timeline of warming.

But the complexities of the interactions between the land and atmosphere, especially in a rapidly changing climate, are challenging to model, leading to uncertainty around the magnitude and persistence of this critical carbon sink. I dug into this complexity with my energy colleagues in the context of their recent analysis of pathways for how the US can meet its goals to cut heat-trapping emissions 50%-52% below 2005 levels by 2030, and achieve net zero emissions no later than 2050.   

That analysis assumed the U.S. land sink stays fixed at current levels, given the high level of uncertainty shown in recent studies around whether emissions absorbed by the US land sink will increase or decrease. Here, I’ll dig into why we made that choice, and provide an overview of the history and disruptions to the land carbon sink as well as some thoughts about its future.  

A brief history of the land carbon sink

Every year, globally, land-based ecosystems remove roughly 30% of human emissions from the atmosphere, slowing both the accumulation of atmospheric CO2 and increases in global temperature. In North America, the land carbon sink between 2004 and 2013 offset roughly 39% of fossil fuel emissions,  but varied substantially year to year.

This carbon absorption occurs through photosynthesis, where plants use water, light, and the nitrogen-rich enzyme RuBisCo to turn CO2 into sugars and other carbon compounds. While this process occurs at the very small scale of an individual cell within an individual leaf, the cumulative impact of this process over time and across ecosystems is enormous.

Land based ecosystems have also historically emitted carbon through processes like decomposition, harvest, and combustion in wildfire, but overall have absorbed more than they release. As human emissions increase, the sink strength of these ecosystems has continued to expand due to CO2 fertilization, but their capacity to absorb carbon is not unlimited. 

Climate change threatens the strength of the carbon sink

Climate change disrupts many of the processes that govern the land carbon sink and can vary substantially by region, creating conditions that decrease photosynthesis and increase carbon losses. Drought and extreme heat can limit the ability of plants to photosynthesize, as can highly variable rainfall. Similarly, global increases in vapor pressure deficit (VPD), a variable that captures the thirstiness of the atmosphere and is projected to continue rising, have already reduced vegetation growth globally.

These same environmental changes can also increase carbon losses from land-based ecosystems. Insect outbreaks, aggravated by climate change, can both decrease carbon absorption by killing trees and increase carbon emissions through the decomposition of those same trees. Drought and extreme heat can also dry out vegetation, priming it to burn, even in systems that are not historically adapted to wildfire. Rising VPD has been linked to a near doubling of burned area in forests of the western US, and an increase in the area burned at high severity, both of which can lead to huge emissions from forests. While some of these emissions may be reabsorbed relatively quickly as forests regrow, combustion of soil carbon, which can take decades to centuries to accumulate, can result in net carbon emissions, particularly in boreal and arctic ecosystems, where the majority of ecosystem carbon is below ground. In Canada, a combination of factors including a large mountain pine beetle outbreak and record setting wildfires, have transitioned their forests from carbon sink to carbon source.

Thawing permafrost, the vast stores of ancient carbon that remain frozen year-round beneath Earth’s arctic and boreal biomes, similarly represents a threat to the historical strength of the land carbon sink. Both gradual and abrupt thaw can release huge amounts of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further exacerbating warming.

The future of the land carbon sink

The future of the land carbon sink will be determined by the net effect of policies and investments that can 1) enhance land-based carbon absorption and storage and 2) reduce the magnitude of carbon losses from ecosystems. These include strategies like reforestation, wetland restoration, and proactive forest management.  

Using data from complex earth system models (ESMs), the most recent IPCC assessment concludes that the global land sector is very unlikely to switch from a source to a sink before 2100. However, when focused on just North America, the Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report highlights that ‘the net land sink within North America is projected to either remain near current levels or decline significantly by the end of the century.’ This difference can be partially explained by the global versus regional scope of each statement, but the inner workings of models may play a role too. While these models are the best available and continue to improve in complexity, they still do not fully capture many of the climate feedbacks outlined above. Wildfire is only represented in roughly half of the models used and permafrost is only rarely represented, both of which are large contributors of emissions in North America.

Together, this suggests that current models may be underestimating the extent of emission reductions required to achieve certain temperature targets. This does not undercut the conclusions drawn from any given model, but rather increases the urgency with which we must phase out fossil fuels and adapt to coming climate change. At the same time, policies and investments to help protect and enhance the existing land sink remain urgent and vital, not just for climate purposes but also for biodiversity and ecosystem benefits and for benefits to the lives, livelihoods, and health of communities.

As ExxonMobil prepares for its annual general meeting (AGM) this spring, the corporation is facing calls to drop an unprecedented lawsuit against shareholders who are asking for deeper global warming emissions reductions. There has been comparatively less attention to the decision by climate scientist Dr. Susan Avery not to seek re-election to the ExxonMobil board of directors. Yet this shift in corporate leadership is significant, marking the end of a chapter in ExxonMobil’s long and ongoing history of climate deception and disinformation.

Here’s a primer on why a climate scientist was on ExxonMobil’s board, what Dr. Avery accomplished during her tenure, and how ExxonMobil has acted on climate science over the past seven years. I conclude with one plea to Dr. Avery in her final weeks on ExxonMobil’s board: to call on her colleagues in corporate leadership to stop the company from suing shareholders who are seeking to preserve a livable climate.

Why is a climate scientist on ExxonMobil’s board?

Because climate-conscious investors requested it. As evidence mounted of ExxonMobil’s role in concerted campaigns to deny climate science—through investigative journalism exposés and reports such as UCS’s Climate Deception Dossiers—shareholders called for the company to nominate an independent director with climate change expertise, believing that the presence of an expert would  lead to science-informed corporate decisions.

Dr. Susan Avery, a physicist and atmospheric scientist, is the former director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts. She’s also professor emeritus at University of Colorado at Boulder. At the time of her nomination, Dr. Avery was a respected climate scientist—although she had also sparked controversy with her decisions at WHOI to accept major funding from oil and gas corporations.

It’s worth noting that the shareholder proposal requesting the nomination of a climate expert to ExxonMobil’s board received just over 20 percent support in 2016. Yet the corporation acted on it—giving the lie to claims that such shareholder advocacy is frivolous. In fact, shareholder resolutions can be an early-warning system to help corporations address issues of investor and public concern before they snowball into major problems.

What did Dr. Avery accomplish?

Cynically speaking, she raked in well over $2 million in compensation for carrying out her responsibilities as an ExxonMobil director.

As a member of ExxonMobil’s board of directors and chair of the Environment, Safety, and Public Policy (ESPP) committee of the Board, Dr. Avery was in a unique position with a critical responsibility to steer the corporation toward scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability. Shareholders and scientists had a legitimate expectation that she would use her leadership role to ensure that the company’s resources were not used to promote faulty science, climate disinformation, or greenwashing campaigns. Unfortunately, ExxonMobil’s decisions and actions over the course of her board tenure have dashed that expectation.

Back in the pre-pandemic days when ExxonMobil held in-person AGMs, I attended on the proxy of climate-conscious shareholders. Scientists from a range of disciplines and institutions joined me to ask questions of corporate decision-makers and speak in support of climate action. You can read their insights from their experiences—including being denied the opportunity to take the floor—and their efforts to engage with Dr. Avery in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

A turning point for shareholder advocacy

ExxonMobil’s appointment of Dr. Avery to its board was an acknowledgment of mounting pressure on the corporation to align its decisions and actions with climate science. And the pressure kept growing. At ExxonMobil’s 2017 AGM—when Dr. Avery was added to the board—a majority of shareholders for the first time approved a climate-related shareholder proposal.

A few months later, Dr. Geoffrey Supran and Dr. Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University published an important peer-reviewed study of ExxonMobil’s climate change communications, concluding that the corporation “contributed quietly to climate science and loudly to raising doubts about it.”

What followed was a stream of yearly corporate reports produced in response to investor demands that ExxonMobil disclose its plans for a world that meets the Paris climate agreement’s goal of limiting the global average temperature increase to well below two degrees Celsius (2°C) above pre-industrial levels, and striving to limit it to 1.5°C.

ExxonMobil wrapped itself in the mantle of “net zero”—conveniently omitting the emissions deriving from use of its oil and gas products, which account for about 85 percent of the total global warming emissions attributable to the corporation. The company used Dr. Avery’s image in promoting its bogus net-zero solutions.

The corporation faced an unprecedented shareholder rebellion in 2021, with upstart hedge fund investor Engine No. 1 capturing three seats on the board by successfully arguing that ExxonMobil was failing to adapt for the transition to clean energy. During Dr. Avery’s tenure, three climate-related shareholder proposals won majorities.

Not an information deficit

However, one climate expert on the board evidently could not change ExxonMobil’s business model. Numerous academic studies and internal corporate documents reveal that the problem was not a deficit of information. A single climate expert clearly failed to steer the corporation away from climate disinformation. Did her presence enable ExxonMobil to hone its climate disinformation and greenwashing for a new era when bald-faced climate denial no longer works?

The fossil fuel giant now claims to be “aligned” with the Paris climate agreement, all while it continues to massively expand oil and gas exploration and production and lobby against climate action. In sworn testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee in 2021, ExxonMobil Chair and CEO Darren Woods refused to ensure that corporate funds are not spent to spread disinformation and block climate action.

Not surprisingly, Big Oil’s disinformation campaign continues, as documented by the Congressional investigation and climate accountability lawsuits filed by dozens of cities, counties, and states across the United States and its territories.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil also resists transparency, working through the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, and other groups to oppose a strong Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule designed to mandate standardized and comparable corporate disclosures. Read this recent blog by my colleague Laura Peterson to learn how the SEC weakened its final climate disclosure rule in an (unsuccessful) attempt to placate foes.

Leading in the wrong direction

In the face of the climate crisis, every board member of every publicly held corporation must be climate competent—and every board member has a duty to limit corporate climate impacts, plan for the transition to clean renewable energy, and support science-based climate policy. Some experts warn that board members of corporations that do not adequately manage climate-related risks could even be held personally liable for breaching their legal obligations.

Dr. Avery, for her part, gave a ringing endorsement of ExxonMobil’s 2023 “Advancing Climate Solutions” report—a masterclass in paltering (using selected truthful statements to mislead) and greenwashing (deceptive marketing to suggest companies or products are environmentally friendly).

“As chair of our ESPP Committee, I’m proud to work on key issues related to climate risk at ExxonMobil. With my experience as an atmospheric scientist and a leader at a global research organization, I am committed to helping to advise the Board on public issues of significance… The members of the ESPP Committee are united in our commitment to position ExxonMobil as an industry leader in pursuing sustainable solutions that improve quality of life and meet society’s evolving needs.”

As Dr. Avery nears the end of seven years on the board, here’s a snapshot of “key issues related to climate risk at ExxonMobil”:

• ExxonMobil presents misleading science and refuses to acknowledge its responsibility for reducing emissions from the use of its oil and gas products. In its 2024 “Advancing Climate Solutions” report, ExxonMobil continues to deny any responsibility for Scope 3 emissions from use of the oil and gas products that it markets and sells—which constitute roughly 85 percent of the heat-trapping emissions attributable to ExxonMobil. My climate scientist colleague Dr. Carly Phillips does a great job explaining how the charts presented in this report are not scientifically rigorous and even appear intentionally vague and misleading, which reduces transparency around ExxonMobil’s climate impacts and mitigation efforts.  
• The corporation’s “low carbon” roadmap relies heavily on unproven and unscaled technologies. ExxonMobil focuses on net-zero technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen, calling into question the corporate commitment to reducing emissions in the critical period between now and 2030.
• ExxonMobil’s advertising campaigns mislead consumers, overstate its current and planned clean energy endeavors, and increase its own liability. Given the centrality of polluting fossil fuels to its business, ExxonMobil’s recent marketing campaigns have been criticized as greenwashing for falsely representing ExxonMobil as a clean energy leader, making overblown claims about the environmental benefits of its products, and touting unproven technologies. In addition to misleading the public about key scientific and environmental issues, these campaigns increase corporate liability. The company is now being sued by states and municipalities across the United States and its territories for consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices, and racketeering, threatening the financial security of shareholders such as public pension funds.
• ExxonMobil continues to fund organizations that spread climate disinformation and seek to block climate action. Despite the company’s public claims of “advancing climate solutions”, ExxonMobil retains leadership roles in several trade associations—including  the American Petroleum Institute, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and National Association of Manufacturers—that engage in climate obstructionist lobbying. ExxonMobil also continues to bankroll organizations such as the American Enterprise Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce that have a long and ongoing history of distorting science and downplaying the grave nature of the climate crisis.

Ultimately, ExxonMobil’s “Global Outlook” projects higher oil, gas, and coal consumption in 2050 than today, utterly failing to align with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and International Energy Agency (IEA) scenarios that fossil fuel use must fall to limit the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

Stop suing climate-conscious shareholders

Perhaps nothing shows that ExxonMobil is determined to maintain its climate-destroying business model better than the company’s current lawsuit against its own shareholders. In January, the corporation sued two shareholders that had filed a resolution requesting medium-term targets for reducing emissions from corporate operations and from the use of its oil and gas products. ExxonMobil is pressing ahead with its lawsuit even after the shareholders withdrew their proposal.

The SEC has long recognized climate change is a significant issue that shareholders have an interest in discussing; the agency has allowed many climate-related shareholder resolutions to proceed to a vote in recent years, and none has provoked such a legal backlash. As the climate crisis worsens, investors have a right to understand and address the financial risks posed by delays in climate action, particularly by fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil that are contributing disproportionately to the problem while failing to evolve for the clean energy transition.

ExxonMobil should not attempt to repress its shareholders’ ability to consider and provide strategic guidance to corporate leadership about one of the most pressing issues of our time. This lawsuit against shareholders calling for more ambitious climate action, along with ExxonMobil’s aggressive expansion of oil and gas production, demonstrate to investors and the world that the corporation continues to act in bad faith. Investors including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS)—the largest US pension fund—are calling on ExxonMobil to drop the lawsuit and weighing whether to keep their investments in light of these tactics.

Over the past seven years, Dr. Avery has frustrated shareholders, scientists, and the public by failing to steer the corporation toward transparency and accountability—and away from climate disinformation and greenwashing. While she cannot erase that legacy, in her final days on the ExxonMobil board Dr. Avery could do a significant service to climate science by persuading her colleagues in corporate leadership to drop this frivolous and hypocritical lawsuit. She still has time to act before her term expires at the corporation’s AGM in late May.

A new dataset released by InfluenceMap provides information on heat-trapping emissions traced to the 122 largest investor and state-owned fossil fuel companies in the world. Fossil fuels are the main driver of climate change and the terrifying effects of it that we see happening across the world. That makes this dataset a powerful tool for understanding how each of these entity’s heat-trapping emissions have contributed to climate change.

I have been working with this new InfluenceMap dataset in my own research, and here I’ll share how I’m using it and offer a look at heat-trapping emissions from five major investor-owned fossil fuel companies: ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips. These companies have been polluting our planet for decades with impunity and they are planning to continue their harmful fossil fuel extraction despite global efforts to tackle climate change. As I show below, their cumulative emissions have continued to rise over the decades even as international efforts to confront climate change have been enacted through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.

To learn more about the history of this dataset, ways researchers have used a previous version of it, and applications for new research and climate litigation, check out this blog post written by my colleague Carly Phillips.

Using data for litigation-relevant research

Since fall of 2022, I have been the Hitz Fellow for Litigation Relevant Research here at the Union of Concerned Scientists. My fellowship is based on using data that trace heat-trapping emissions to major fossil fuel producers in order to understand how they have affected the climate, particularly global sea levels, and to aid efforts to hold these producers accountable. Scientists tend to be more comfortable using our research to inform policy than to inform litigation so the phrase ‘litigation-relevant research’ may not be familiar to some readers. But this is a rapidly growing way to apply our skills as climate litigation begins to pick up steam around the world and researchers look for ways to help out. Last year my colleague Sarah Goodspeed put together a toolkit called Research on the Record, to help explain litigation relevant research to the broader research community. Check it out to learn more.

I am using this new dataset from InfluenceMap to work on two different research projects. One of them looks at how past emissions from fossil fuel companies will continue affecting sea levels for centuries to come. The other project uses the data to understand how fossil fuel production in specific countries relates to global efforts under the Paris Agreement to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. I’m not going to share the results of those studies here since I need to preserve the scientific process and wait for my research to go through peer review, but I do want to share some things I’ve learned along the way as I’ve been working with this data. Let’s dig into it!

Exploring this new dataset

ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips have made headlines in recent years for the enormous profits they are raking in—more than $100 billion in 2023 alone. Meanwhile, climate impacts such as wildfires, floods, and severe storms continue to worsen, heat-trapping emissions continue to rise, and people around the world suffer immense harm from climate-fueled disasters. Fossil fuel companies’ billions of dollars in profits are coming from sales of their harmful products. In Figure 1 we can see the cumulative heat-trapping emissions from their fossil fuel production have increased significantly over the past 140 years.

Figure 1: Cumulative emissions from five major investor-owned fossil fuel companies (Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and ConocoPhillips) over the past 140 years.  

The InfluenceMap dataset includes company-by-company data on emissions of carbon dioxide–the heat-trapping gas responsible for the largest contribution to climate change–and methane, a very potent heat-trapping gas that lasts a shorter time in the atmosphere. The unit used in the graph above, CO2e, is short for carbon dioxide equivalent–a unit that combines carbon dioxide and methane to tell us the equivalent heat-trapping emissions over a 100-year time scale. The main takeaway from this plot is that emissions from these companies’ products have increased over time by quite a lot!

Fossil fuel producers’ cumulative emissions increase

Climate science has evolved significantly over the past 140 years, and we know more now about how the climate system works than ever before. But scientists have known the basics of climate change since the late 1800s, and we certainly knew enough half a century ago to start sounding the alarm bells that heat-trapping emissions were becoming a growing problem for the planet. The fossil fuel industry knew that too. Uncovered documents have shown that several companies were even conducting their own internal research on climate change. ExxonMobil’s research has even proven to be accurate as we have seen global temperatures rise at approximately the levels projected in their research. Yet despite the company’s internal knowledge and the strong science that was publicly available, ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies did not realign their business models in favor of a livable future. Instead, they focused efforts on denying the science, deceiving the public, greenwashing their images, and lobbying against regulations. Let’s look at their cumulative emissions since the 1950s in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Cumulative emissions of five major investor-owned fossil fuel companies, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and ConocoPhillips, since 1950. Vertical dotted lines mark 1992, when the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was established, and 2016, when the Paris Agreement was ratified.  Rising emissions flout climate science

Even as the science advanced and people and policymakers around the world became increasingly concerned about climate change, heat-trapping emissions from the world’s largest fossil fuel producers continued to grow. By the early 1990s, countries around the world came together and established the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Following that important development, annual international negotiations began to figure out how to achieve the goals of the UNFCCC.

After decades of these negotiations, the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015 and ratified in 2016 (to read more about this history check out my peer-reviewed research here). I’ve marked these important years with dotted lines in Figure 2. As we can see, throughout these recent decades—despite the international efforts to address climate change and the scientific consensus showing that fossil fuels are the leading cause of climate change—the cumulative emissions from these major fossil fuel producers have continued to rise. They are taking us in the wrong direction, and we desperately need a change.

In this blog I have shown cumulative heat-trapping emissions from each of these companies. This is because cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are key for understanding global temperature rise. To quote the Summary for Policymakers from the Working Group 1 section of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 6th Assessment Report: “From a physical science perspective, limiting human-induced global warming to a specific level requires limiting cumulative CO2 emissions …. This Report reaffirms with high confidence the AR5 finding that there is a near-linear relationship between cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the global warming they cause.” The plots here show CO2e, but most of each company’s emissions are CO2 so these cumulative emissions plots give us a good idea of how each of these companies has continued to drive rising global temperatures over time. In a follow up blog I will break down each company’s annual heat-trapping emissions to compare what we can learn from that.

Sharply reducing emissions requires phasing out fossil fuels

The most recent IPCC report and United Nations Production Gap report show that fossil fuel producers must decrease their production, yet that isn’t what they have been doing in recent decades—and it isn’t what they are planning to do in the critical period between now and 2030. Climate justice activists and their supporters around the world have called for a fast and fair fossil fuel phaseout. The year 2023 was the hottest year on record (so far!); calls for accountability continue to grow louder.

This new dataset from InfluenceMap provides a powerful tool for researchers like me to understand where heat-trapping emissions are coming. That information can help as we work together to reverse these dangerous trends and build a better future based on clean renewable energy.

Last week, I visited Yosemite National Park and walked along a gorgeous trail surrounded by snow-blanketed sequoia trees. Beyond the horizon of pine trees to the south lies the Sierra National Forest, and beyond the rocky horizon to the north lies the Stanislaus National Forest. Further beyond these national forests lies the rest of the expansive Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, spanning 400 miles.

The entrance to Mariposa Grove, home to Yosemite’s majestic giant sequoias. Photo credit: J. Pablo Ortiz-Partida.

Tomorrow, April 2nd, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) will perform the last open-to-the-media snow survey of the year. These seasonal snow surveys offer a health check-up for our water system. If you’re a precipitation nerd, you can follow the livestream here.

The slow pace of snow at the start of this season worried water managers at first, but California has now exceeded 100% of the average for this time of the year.

Beyond this year’s measurements, it’s critical to consider what our snow levels mean for water management in a warming climate, and what needs to change so we can better prepare for the future. 

Three comparative maps of snow water equivalent (SWE) across California on April 1 in 2015, 2023, and 2024, based on data from the National Snow Analysis by the Office of Water Prediction. The maps use color gradations to indicate the depth of snow in inches. Source: https://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/

As I appreciated the beauty of Yosemite’s snowy landscapes, I couldn’t help but wonder what they would look like in 10, 20, or 50 years, considering the continued effects of climate change—including wildfire and drought—on the landscape. The scenery I saw before me is undergoing serious transformations, with critical implications for the whole state.

California snow survey fun facts

What are some maybe not-so-fun facts, and how are these surveys performed? 

• In California, snow surveys help the state forecast and manage the year’s water supply. Snow surveys not only measure the depth of the snow, but also its density to estimate how much liquid water there will be once it melts. This is known as Snow Water Equivalent (SWE). 
• These snow surveys are part of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys (CCSS) program, which was established by the State legislature in 1929. Thanks to this program, there are more than 260 places throughout the state where either manual or electronic snow surveys take place. 
• 2015 was the first year in which measurements going back to 1942 didn’t register any snow on April 1. That day, Governor Brown signed an Executive Order mandating a 25% water use reduction across the state.
• Last year, in April 2023, the manual survey recorded 10.5 feet of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 4.5 feet—over 200% above the average!
• When low atmospheric pressure, strong winds, and high-temperature conditions materialize in the mountains, some snow transforms directly into water vapor (without melting first). This is a process known as sublimation. In the Sierra Nevadas, this process can result in a 10% reduction of snow water equivalent. (This happened last year, which helped alleviate the dreadful forecast of even bigger flood flows, especially into Tulare Lake. Still, the Tulare Lake, dry since the early 1900s, reached a surface area as large as Lake Tahoe.)

Snow water content across Sierra Nevada Regions (North, Central, South) and the state overall, as a percentage of the April 1 average, spanning from December to July. The light blue shading indicates average. The red line is 2014-2015, the minimum historical snow water content. The thin blue line is last year, a record-breaking year in many places across the state. The solid blue line depicts the current year (2023-2024), showing a very close to average snow water content. Source: https://cdec.water.ca.gov/snowapp/swcchart.action

Beyond water supply, snow and rain also have other essential roles in California:

• In snow-abundant years, utilities produce more hydropower, which helps reduce fossil fuel consumption. However, in dry years, they rely more on the use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. 
• Farmers and farm managers often use snow survey information to select crop planting patterns, estimate groundwater pumping needs, and plan irrigation schedules. 
• Similarly, reservoir operators apply these data to manage flood risks effectively, forecasting water inflows to maintain appropriate reservoir levels. This careful planning allows for sufficient water storage while balancing flood risk. 

And if that wasn’t enough, here are four more reasons why everyone in California should care about snow. 

1.   It’s a natural form of water storage that provides about one-third of California’s water supply.  

Our snowscapes are not just beautiful, but crucial for California’s water supply. The Sierra Nevada region (including part of the Southern Cascade Mountains) is essential for California’s ecosystems and communities as it acts as a natural water storage pool, holding snow throughout the winter. As temperatures rise during spring and summer, the snow melts and flows through rivers, feeding ecosystems and reaching California’s major reservoirs like Shasta, Trinity, Folsom, and Oroville in the North; New Melones, Don Pedro, and McClure fed by the Central Sierra; and Isabella dam, among others fed by the Southern Sierra. 

The snow eventually melts and infiltrates into soils and aquifers across the state, resupplying soil moisture or natural groundwater storage systems. It also enters rivers, lakes, and reservoirs that serve different purposes, such as providing water for agriculture, supplying urban areas with drinking water (including large metropolitan areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles), producing hydropower, controlling salinity in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and even contributing to tourism and recreational opportunities. Overall, every year, the snowpack from the Sierra Nevada Region becomes part of the water that maintains ecosystems, supplies water to over 25 million people throughout the state, and sustains millions of acres of irrigated agriculture.  

Fresh snow blankets the ground, rocks, and pine trees in Yosemite National Park. A stream of snowmelt flows in the landscape. That water eventually reaches the Merced River, which runs through Yosemite Valley. Photo credit: J. Pablo Ortiz-Partida. 2.   It’s vital for California’s agriculture and recreation economies.

Agriculture depends on a consistent and reliable water supply. Snowmelt is a major source of irrigation water: based on how much it snows each year, water managers forecast streamflow and surface water allocations for farmers so they can plan for the planting and watering of crops, which directly affects the agricultural economy. My colleague and friend Angel has written about California’s outstanding agriculture economic performance, with the San Joaquin Valley alone generating a revenue of $37.1 billion in 2020. A contrasting and unjust reality is that agriculture often uses clean snowmelt water to irrigate crops, while rural underserved communities live with dwindling and polluted groundwater. This points to the need for California’s conventional agriculture systems to be reformed and turned into sustainable agriculture. Such a process needs to consider economic, water, and social and environmental sustainability.  

Also, while agriculture in California represents only between 1% and 2% of the state’s gross domestic product, food production in the state is very important for the whole United States. This responsibility justifies agriculture use of 80% of the water used in California. However, it can’t last. California needs to repurpose a significant surface of cropland, since we don’t have enough water to sustain our current practices. That could translate into a great opportunity for the rest of the United States to work on local food production—local agriculture can supply up to 90% of the food needs in the country. 

Snow is also essential for tourism, rafting, recreational fishing, and skiing industries and contributes to local economies. If you have ever visited a Lake Tahoe ski resort, you know how many people head to the slopes to enjoy the snowy views. Tourists help maintain local businesses by spending money on hotels, meals, gear, “I forgot to pack” warm socks, and recreational activities. Consequently, snow is not just a seasonal feature of the landscape: it’s a key economic engine that supports businesses and mountain communities, making its preservation and management essential for the vitality of local communities.

My shredding cousin’s perspective overlooking a distant Lake Tahoe. Photo credit: Isa Torres. 3.   Too little snow is bad news for California’s water supply; too much is a risk to public safety.  

The balance between too little and too much snow in California underscores the delicate dance of decisions that ensure both dry season supply and public safety. Understanding snowpack accumulation and its snow water equivalent helps estimate flood risks associated with rapid melting or so-called rain-on-snow events. This information is critical for flood management and emergency preparedness, protecting people’s lives and reducing the risk of damage to dams, levees, and other infrastructure. 

This scenario is further complicated by 19th century colonial alterations to natural floodplains, which historically served as nature’s own flood management system. The conversion of these floodplains for agricultural use or urban development has stripped the San Joaquin Valley of its natural flood resilience, leading to increased vulnerability to flooding events.

Some local groundwater sustainability agencies are encouraging farmers to capture flood waters to perform groundwater recharge in their farms, which can help mitigate floods in vulnerable communities while giving farmers credits for groundwater storage. Of course, to protect water quality near rural communities, it is very important to understand how the land was previously used in order to address potential toxic substances in the soil (fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals) that could be dragged into aquifers during recharge. As we learn from past mistakes, there are efforts to reconvert certain cropland areas to natural flood plains to reduce California’s vulnerability to floods.

California recently designated groundwater aquifers as “natural infrastructure,” opening the door for funding to increase recharge while reducing flood risk. Also, research into forecast-informed reservoir operation (FIRO) is improving, and it can help resource managers be much more precise in reservoir management to store the right amount of water to guarantee flood protection and maximize water availability. 

An inundated dairy and its buildings as well submerged farmlands. This was part of Tulare Lake last year (2023) after intense rains and snowmelt. Photo credit: J. Pablo Ortiz-Partida. 4.   Snow is an indicator of climate change, with an uncertain future

Rising temperatures lead to more precipitation occurring as rain and less as snow. Higher temperatures reduce soil moisture and increase evapotranspiration, sublimation, and faster snowmelt. These dynamics result in diminished snowpack and changes in runoff patterns with implications for the various sectors reliant on California’s snowpack. As climate change poses increasing challenges to these sectors, the importance of adopting sustainable management and adaptation strategies is increasingly urgent. Such strategies ensure that snow continues to support economic activities while meeting environmental and community needs.

Wildfires add another layer of complexity. While low-intensity wildfires are increasingly being recognized as natural ecosystem processes thanks to traditional ecological knowledge, some recent high-intensity wildfires are far from natural. These fires not only devastate landscapes but also significantly alter the snowpack dynamics. The destruction of vegetation through intense burning can lead to increased snow accumulation, as fewer trees are present to intercept the snowfall. This seemingly beneficial increase, however, is offset by the darkened, ash and dirt-covered snow, which absorbs more sunlight and accelerates melting. Post-wildfire landscape increases runoff and erosion and, in many cases, worsens water quality. These factors change snowmelt patterns and complicate decision-making for water managers. 

The compounding effect of wildfires on snow processes adds urgency to the need for comprehensive climate adaptation strategies. These strategies must account for both the direct impacts of reduced snowfall and the secondary effects of wildfires on the hydrological cycle, ensuring the resilience of California’s water resources in a changing climate.

Adding to the increased difficulty of future water management, Sierra reservoirs are increasingly misaligned with changing precipitation patterns, situated where snowfall is becoming scarce or melting prematurely in the season, which compromises their storage and supply capabilities. 

Urban stormwater systems are another point of concern, particularly in areas where levees disconnected natural flood plains and where concrete and asphalt channel water into the streets, reducing the water that would naturally replenish soils and aquifers. This underscores the need for improved water capture and reuse strategies.

The San Joaquin Valley exemplifies the critical issue of groundwater over-extraction without adequate recharge, a practice that is unsustainable and jeopardizes both the quantity and quality of water resources. This systemic inadequacy calls for a comprehensive reevaluation and redesign of California’s water infrastructure, ensuring it is resilient, adaptable, and capable of meeting the demands of a warming state with reduced snow and its consequent hydrological shifts.

A landscape showing the effects a couple of years after a forest fire, with burned trees standing against sparse pockets of snow in the ground—a reminder of fire’s transformative power on ecosystems. Photo credit: J. Pablo Ortiz-Partida. We need to act now to preserve the snow future

The snow in Yosemite and beyond the horizon in the rest of the Sierra impacts many of us in ways we may not realize. A future without snow is a future I don’t want to imagine.

A future with reduced snow, however, is imminent, and California state and local agencies need to plan for it. For the rest of us, in California and beyond, every action taken to reduce heat-trapping gas emissions, especially a fast and equitable phaseout of fossil fuels, will contribute to mitigating the impacts of climate change and reducing the vulnerability of communities and ecosystems to current and future harms.

Beneath the reputation of Los Angeles as a land of cars, palms, and sunshine lies a reality of stark inequalities—including access to trees and shade. Nearly 20% of L.A.’s urban forest is concentrated where only 1% of the city’s population lives, endangering lower-income communities and people of color with hotter-feeling summers and poor environmental quality. In the US and elsewhere, heat is the biggest weather-related killer, and people who live with less shade are two to three times more likely to suffer from heat-related illness and death.

From one neighborhood to the next, heat is not experienced evenly. That’s because every neighborhood is made up of a unique constellation of characteristics. Urban form shapes how much heat is retained or dissipated, and this includes factors such as patterns of development, whether housing was built before or after the adoption of energy standards, and the ratio of green space to built surfaces such as roads, parking lots, and buildings. Social factors, too, affect heat outcomes. People who rely on public transportation, live alone, or work jobs that are exposed to the elements—such as farm workers, gardeners, and postal workers—are all at greater risk. According to the California Department of Public Health, 599 people died from heat-related causes in California between 2010 and 2019, but a Los Angeles Times analysis found the true toll was likely six times higher. 

Community-partnered science helps tackle the problem

To address inequities in heat-related risk, my colleagues and I have taken a community-partnered approach to better understanding the challenge of shade (in)equity and exploring solutions that cities can implement to cool neighborhoods and save lives. 

Residents at a workshop in South Los Angeles mark a neighborhood map to show places they like to visit and those they avoid. (Credit: Edith de Guzman)

In 2020, we worked with a group of community scientists in South L.A. to collect data on the impacts of trees on indoor and outdoor temperatures at their homes. Our network of community scientists contributed three months of continued data, finding that trees play an important role keeping homes cool when afternoon temperatures are at their highest. On September 6 of that year, when LA hit its all-time highest temperature of 121°F, one of our community scientists in a home with no trees or air conditioning recorded a temperature of 107°F in their living room. Such extreme temperatures are risky even for healthy people, and sustained exposure can prove deadly. 

In another study, my colleagues and I found that if heat-vulnerable neighborhoods had more trees, up to half of the lives currently lost to heat could be saved. 

But despite trees being a seemingly simple solution, L.A.’s extensive roadways and its extreme income and climate diversity make it challenging to grow trees to protect marginalized communities. 

Shade is a right

To tackle this reality, I co-founded the L.A. Urban Forest Equity Collective — a group of forestry experts, Los Angeles City staff, community-based organizations and researchers working to address today’s legacy impacts of 20th-century policy decisions that led to some neighborhoods having fewer trees and protections from heat. For example, redlining policies prevented some neighborhoods from investing in parks.

My primary partners in this work are two other women who are powerful scientist advocates —  Rachel O’Leary, Senior Partnership and Equity Supervisor at the California Department of Forestry and Science Protection, and Dana Hellman, Resilience Manager at CAPA Strategies.

A hearty high-five is exchanged at a tree planting in Los Angeles. (Credit: City Plants)

About our work, Rachel says: “We believe that your zip code should not determine how much tree cover you have, the air quality you breathe, or your mental health—all of which are impacted by trees.”

With funding from Accelerate Resilience L.A. (a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors) and the U.S. Forest Service via the L.A. Center for Urban Natural Resources Sustainability, our group just released a suite of publications that redefine the problem of urban forest equity and present workable solutions that can be adopted by community members, local groups, and city leaders. 

The newly published work offers a step-by-step, decision-making framework that centers equity in tree planting, and a design guidebook to help residents and planners identify opportunities for greening regardless of space constraints. We also released two hyperlocal implementation strategies co-created with community members—with green visions for the neighborhoods of Central Alameda in South L.A. and Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley.

“I live adjacent to the 210 freeway, and the air pollution is bad,” said Maria, a Sylmar resident who attended a workshop for this project. “We need trees,” she said, adding that their presence also helps bring kids outside and away from their screens.

Does your community lack shade equity?

We challenged ourselves to rethink ways to create vibrant urban spaces. We were determined to work with communities that have been told for decades that there are never enough resources to give them the same environmental benefits that wealthier neighborhoods enjoy, and to find pathways to address the barriers. And we did. Our recommendations are now being incorporated by the City in its planning and policy efforts. 

Creating new spaces for trees can happen when built surfaces like asphalt or concrete are removed. (Credit: City Plants)

If you are a resident, advocate, or local decision-maker looking to engage your community on this topic, we encourage fostering diverse partnerships and building upon existing and emerging resources and knowledge. Any efforts to advance equity will benefit from the inclusion of multiple perspectives, experiences, and contributions.

We also encourage any efforts to grow shade to account for multiple facets of equity, not just distributional. While the physical distribution of trees is significant, we recommend that practitioners consider opportunities to integrate recognitional and procedural equity into their work as well.

Recognitional equity could mean conducting background research on socio-environmental conditions to better understand ongoing challenges and their root causes, while meaningfully engaging residents when identifying greening interventions to capture and address their goals, needs, and concerns. Procedural equity includes transparency in decision making, access to information and decision making for community members, and the fair, impartial distribution of services.

The good news is that these ideas are spreading from advocates and practitioners, to local and state governments. And using your voice, you can help make shade equity a reality in your city or town.