Laura Ferro
Last week the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 Campaign, Renewable Cities, ICLEI USA, and the San Francisco Department of the Environment partnered to convene the first ever meeting of North American municipalities looking at transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy. Representatives of twenty cities and towns participated, from San Diego, San Francisco, and Vancouver in the West to Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Cleveland across the manufacturing heartland. Both “leading” cities that are working on a transition to 100 percent clean energy and “learning” cities that have yet to set a goal came to exchange ideas.
100 percent renewable energy is no longer a pie-in-the-sky idea. Sixteen cities across the U.S., of different sizes and political bent, have committed to powering their cities using only renewable energy. Last week in the conservative state of Utah, Salt Lake City joined the 100 percent club by adopting an ambitious community-wide goal to move off of all fossil fuels in its electric sector. The City of San Diego also established a 100 percent renewable energy plan last year under a Republican mayor and with bipartisan support.
Cities have plans to reach these goals by dates ranging from 2020 to 2050, and for the most part, their targets extend only to the electricity sector. East Hampton, New York—at the tip of Long Island—should get there by 2020, especially if the Long Island Power Authority approves the nation’s largest offshore wind project in coming weeks, but they have also set a goal to move off of all fossil fuels in every sector by 2030. More and more cities are looking at how they can achieve 100 percent renewable across electricity, transportation and buildings.
Cities worldwide are adopting ambitious renewable energy targets, not only to reduce carbon pollution, but also to promote local economic development and jobs, enhance social equity, democratize and assert local governance over energy production, and protect the health of their citizens. This week the White House launched the Clean Energy for All Initiative, a government effort that will help to ensure every American family can choose to go solar and make home improvements to cut energy bills, create jobs, and clean up the environment.
But setting goals is one thing -- is achieving 100 percent renewable energy really possible? Absolutely. Greensburg, Kansas, Aspen, Colorado, and Burlington, Vermont are already getting 100 percent of their electricity from clean and renewable sources. Renewable energy prices are dropping so rapidly in many places around the country that it’s now less expensive to power homes and businesses with wind or solar than with coal, oil, or gas. Cities can't help seeing it as a way of advancing their economies and improving livability.
No two cities will get to 100 percent the same way. Participants in the dialogue talked about the challenge of shifting large-scale, centralized utilities away from fossil fuels. Municipally-owned utilities tend to be more responsive to community demand for cleaner energy. Cities that do not control their own utilities are starting to look at other strategies, such as Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), as a way to encourage new renewable energy producers, including individual households, to start supplying their local market.
Another key issue is how to ensure that the transition to 100 percent renewable energy is equitable in its benefits and costs, particularly to working families and communities that have borne the brunt of fossil fuel pollution. Robust programs are needed to install affordable renewable energy in low-income communities and provide workforce training and jobs where they’re needed most, as exemplified in the work of Grid Alternatives, another participant in the dialogue. Each city will need to work out its own strategies to ensure access and affordability for all residents, and equity must be central to every city’s plan to achieve 100 percent.
There were also words of encouragement from Lisa Jackson (former EPA Administrator and current VP Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives at Apple) about how one of the world’s biggest companies is committed to 100 percent renewable energy, even along its entire supply chain.
We hope cities took this inspiration home with them. Achieving 100 percent renewable energy will require hard work, community participation, innovative strategies, and a fair amount of elbow grease. But setting a goal is the first step, and all that’s required is political will.
What once seemed like a fantasy -- achieving 100 percent renewable energy in our lifetimes -- has become an objective that clearly is within reach. The world is #Readyfor100 percent clean, renewable energy, and cities are where it is happening first and fastest.