Nearly a dozen Sierra Club members from Alabama and Georgia convened at the annual Southern Company stockholder meeting on May 23 to urge the company to continue bringing clean renewable energy online, provide funding for energy efficiency programs, and build charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.
The meeting, held at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, was an opportunity for people who own shares of the company (which is the parent company for Alabama Power, Georgia Power, and Mississippi Power) to hear about recent developments with the company and attempt to influence its direction. In addition to dominating the question and answer portion of the meeting, Sierra Club members were pleased with the company's recently announced plan to decarbonize its electricity generating power plants by the year 2050.
"Southern Company has demonstrated a willingness to not only listen to the investors concerned about short-term profits, but also to those who are looking at the long-term risks to the company posed by burning coal and climate change," said Stephen Stetson, campaign representative with Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. "We're not thrilled that they continue to plan to generate electricity from fracked gas, but we are happy with the plan to phase out coal, hopefully soon, and hope to work with the company in a productive way on new solar projects, energy efficiency measures and electrifying our region's vehicles."
For more information on Southern Company's plan to decarbonize by 2050, click here (PDF).
For more information on how to get involved in strengthening clean energy policies in Alabama, please contact stephen.stetson@sierraclub.org.