This post is the fourth in a series titled “Real Talk on Reliability,” which will examine the reliability needs of our grid as we move toward 100 percent clean electricity and electrify more end-uses on the path to a climate stable future. It was written by Sara Baldwin, Senior Director of the Electrification Program. Other posts in this series covered Rethinking the Reliability of the Grid, Future of Operational Grid Reliability and Grid Resource Adequacy Transition.

In Fall 2023, Georgia Power filed an updated integrated resource plan with the Georgia Public Service Commission, warning dramatic near-term load growth predictions from data centers required “immediate action” to meet capacity needs by the end of 2025. Their proposed solution set was a combination of three new natural gas power plants (with a combined capacity of up to 1,400 megawatts (MW)), several fossil fuel power purchase agreements, and a modest 150 MW residential demand response program.

But in Spring 2024, tech giant Microsoft contested Georgia Power’s claims, citing concerns the utility was over-forecasting near-term load and procuring excessive, carbon-intensive generation. Microsoft has three data center campuses under construction in Georgia and is looking to expand to at least two more. The company also aims to have 100 percent of their electricity consumption matched by zero-carbon energy purchases 100 percent of the time by 2030—a clear mismatch with Georgia Power’s fossil-centric plans.

This tension is playing out across the country, as electricity demand is increasing in the United States after more than two decades of nearly flat load growth. Numerous utilities and grid operators are revising their 2023 load forecasts and predicting a doubling or more over the next decade, relative to 2022  predictions.

Rapid growth is causing panic over potential capacity shortfalls and insufficient transmission, prompting calls to delay planned coal plant retirements and double down on new natural gas. But these fossil intensive supply side solutions are inherently slow and costly. They’re also incompatible with utility and customer climate commitments to hit net zero emissions by mid-century. Strategic supply side solutions are needed to meet growing demand, but these large investments will show up on electric customers’ bills for decades to come—they should reduce emissions in an affordable and reliable way.

Doubling down on demand side solutions is a cost-effective, least-regrets way to manage growth in the near-term, while unlocking their full potential over the long-term. They can respond to rapidly changing grid conditions and support grid reliability amidst the unpredictability of climate change. Although their decentralized and distributed nature makes them harder to plan for and manage, existing technologies and a growing ecosystem of providers are working to overcome these barriers.

If load growth is causing a crisis of confidence, utilities and grid operators should prioritize demand side solutions and work with customers to deliver valuable grid services. Similarly, policymakers and regulators should adopt policies encouraging demand side resources, increase visibility, enable data sharing, support innovative grid planning methods, and overcome misaligned incentives.

A rapidly shifting load landscape

A May 2024 Brattle Group report documents the rapidly changing landscape for utilities and grid operators, largely driven by new electricity demand from data centers, onshoring manufacturing, agricultural and industrial electrification, cryptocurrency mining, and electrification.

According to the report, in 2023 data centers alone represented 19 gigawatts (GW) of U.S. electricity peak demand, which is nearly double New York City’s 2022 peak load of 10 GW. New research from the Electric Power Research Institute forecasts data centers could consume up to 9 percent of U.S. electricity generation by 2030 – double the amount consumed today. Goldman Sachs estimates 47 GW of incremental power generation capacity will be required to support U.S. data center power demand through 2030, driving $50 billion in cumulative capital investment over the same time frame.

Not all demand sources are created equally. Some have longer lead times and steadier growth rates, like transportation electrification, making them easier to forecast and plan for. Others, like data centers or cryptocurrency mining, are large and can come online on a relatively short time span, requiring huge amounts of energy nearly instantaneously, challenging traditional grid planning and operation paradigms.

Some loads are more elastic and capable of quickly scaling back or shuttering operations in response to changing electricity prices, whereas others may be more inflexible. Electricity customers capable of reducing their impact during peak times could drastically reduce the need for new supply-side resources (thus bringing economic value to the grid and other customers). But, capitalizing on this demand flexibility potential requires adequate incentives.

In addition to the loads themselves, climate-driven extreme weather is disrupting tried-and-true approaches to managing the grid. “Everyone is clutching their pearls over data centers and crypto, but every time we have a polar vortex or a heat wave, similar load increases materialize to serve human needs like heating and cooling, but in a much shorter time span,” says electric reliability expert Alison Silverstein. “We cannot assume demand is immutable. With climate change-driven weather shifts, demand has become less predictable and at times terrifying.”

In nearly every state, summer and winter peak loads are higher, longer and harder to forecast. Given the time and money required to build new generation and transmission to meet new demand, Silverstein argues “we can’t build our way out of this.” Now is the time to activate more energy efficiency and demand side solutions, which are cheaper and faster to deploy, and can also buy us time to make prudent supply side resource adjustments.”

A symphony of demand side solutions ready to perform

Like a combination of complementary musical instruments, demand side solutions encompass a wide range of technologies and applications that have the “potential to moderate the growth of both electricity consumption and peak load,” according to Brattle. For example, distributed generation (DG) like solar, wind, and energy storage systems can be paired with smart inverters or smart appliances capable of responding to changing grid conditions; demand side management (DSM), demand response (DR), and energy efficiency (EE) programs can help consumers reduce and modulate their electricity consumption in exchange for economic benefits; and managed electric vehicle (EV) charging programs can respond to economic or grid conditions to reduce the overall impact of EVs on the grid.

Communication and software tools, like distributed energy management system (DERMS), can make dispersed resources visible to utilities and grid operators so they can plan for and manage them in ways similar to larger supply side resources. Third-party aggregators and consumer-facing program administrators also play key roles as liaisons between grid operators, utilities, and consumers, helping streamline the process of recruiting customers, managing incentives, and pooling participating customers into aggregated resource blocks that can respond to grid needs when called upon.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory notes recent improvements in broadband and local area communication and control systems are enabling faster coordination of demand response resources, such as commercial building HVAC or refrigerated warehouse end-uses, so that loads can be managed and dispatched as needed to support grid reliability.

DR programs deployed at scale can be highly effective at managing new load growth and serving existing load while contributing to grid reliability. These programs induce customers to reduce, increase, or shift their electricity consumption in response to economic or reliability signals. Most DR programs encourage utility customers to shift electricity consumption from hours of high demand (relative to energy supply) to hours where energy supply is plentiful (relative to demand). Future programs may signal customers to increase electricity usage when the grid has excess electricity generation from renewable resources like the wind or sun.

According to a 2019 Brattle Group study, nearly 200 GW of cost-effective load flexibility potential will exist in the U.S. by 2030, more than triple the existing demand response capability, and worth more than $15 billion annually in avoided system costs (i.e., avoided investment in new generation, reduced energy costs, deferred grid infrastructure, and the provision of ancillary services). This potential will only expand as more consumers adopt grid-responsive electric technologies and equipment.

Numerous utilities across the country and globe are relying on DR programs to tap into flexible loads on the grid, and they are increasingly valuable in the face of extreme weather conditions. For example, in Texas, following the devastating Winter Storm Uri 2021, municipally-owned utility CPS Energy launched a new winter program that enables the utility to modify consumers’ demand via their thermostats during periods of high energy use. Similarly, during a 2023 summer heat wave in Arizona, the state’s three largest utilities called on more than 100,000 customers, who get incentives for participating, to reduce their electricity use (by modifying their air conditioner temperatures using smart programmable thermostats) by a total of 276 megawatts (MW) during peak afternoon and evening hours. That amount of power is equivalent to just over half the capacity of an average-sized combined cycle natural gas plant. In the United Kingdom, electric utility Octopus Energy’s Flexible Demand trials paid around 100,000 households to shift their energy from peak times in lieu of paying a fossil fuel generator to switch on.

Depending on the program, participating customers can receive substantial economic benefits. For example, Westchester County, New York has received over $361,500 from NuEnergen, LLC for the county’s enrollment in three summer DR programs. Westchester remains on stand-by to reduce its energy usage during times when the grid is strained, and once alerted of an event, the county reduces energy usage at some of its facilities. To date, Westchester has earned over $1.5 million for participating.

Similarly successful programs target businesses and large energy users, often motivated to participate in programs that will reduce energy costs. For example, Ameren Missouri partners with Enel X to offer incentive payments for participating in a program designed “to maintain a reliable and cost-effective electric grid. Energy consumers can earn payments for committing to reduce their energy consumption temporarily in response to periods of peak demand on the grid.”  In Michigan, DTE Energy offers interruptible rates to all its commercial and industrial customers, wherein electricity is discounted 10 percent to 25 percent for customers that agree to shed a minimum of 50 kilowatts and interrupt their electricity within one hour of notification. Failure to interrupt results in a penalty.

These are just a sample of the successful demand side programs across the country. Yet, today’s DR programs stack up to a mere 60 GW of capacity—about 7 percent of national peak-coincident demand—and residential and commercial customer programs make up only 30 percent of that. Some states have less than 1 percent of peak being met with demand side solutions, with only a handful exceeding 10 percent. Extreme heat and cold events can cause residential and commercial heating and cooling loads to make up nearly half of peak demand for some states (like Texas), prompting a closer look at what can be done to mitigate this in the face of increasing climate change chaos.

Energy efficiency is another effective tool, particularly when efficiency programs are targeted to reduce customer energy usage particularly during peak hours. Efficiency measures such as replacing inefficient resistance heating and air conditioners with highly efficient heat pumps, adding attic insulation, duct sealing, and building envelope sealing can all help reduce customer electricity use on hot summer afternoons and frigid winter mornings, while improving comfort and energy savings. According to Silverstein, efficiency measures deliver benefits including better resource adequacy, lower wholesale prices, lower customer energy bills, lower grid infrastructure requirements, improve customer comfort and health, and lower carbon and pollution emissions.

ACEEE’s 2023 study, “Energy Efficiency And Demand-Response: Tools To Address Texas’ Reliability Challenges”, shows that using 10 aggressive peak-targeted energy efficiency and demand response tools in Texas could reduce both summer and winter peak demand levels by 15 GW or more, at costs far below the cost of building comparable amounts of new gas generators. Similar results are achievable in other states.

Shifting from solely supply-centric to increasingly demand-centered

Although demand side solutions have a proven track record of success, we’ve only scratched the surface. The electricity grid is still largely designed and operated to ramp supply side resources to meet shifting demand, not the other way around. And demand side solutions face challenges in their ability to scale, which prevents them from providing grid services. But times are changing, fast.

In the face of rapid growth combined with extreme and unpredictable weather, now is the time to shift away from solely supply-centric approaches to ones that activate demand side resources and flexible loads to their full potential. Looking forward, as the U.S. electric system uses increasing amounts of variable and weather-dependent resources (i.e., solar and wind) to serve demand, we must shift the system to manage demand resources to meet available supply, rather than managing supply resources to chase demand.

Many utilities and grid operators recognize the promise of demand side solutions, but most lack the tools or financial incentives to lean into them as significant, reputable resources to meet new load growth and ensure grid reliability and affordability.

For example, investor-owned utilities earn returns on large capital expenditures (i.e., new generation or grid infrastructure) and forgo shareholder profits when they rely on decentralized resources that avoid those investments. Bulk system planning and distribution planning are typically siloed processes, and few states or grid operators require coordination between the two. Wholesale market rules make it onerous for smaller aggregated demand side resources to participate in serving grid needs. Similarly, regional transmission operators lack visibility at a granular level on the distribution system, preventing them from forecasting and planning for demand side resources at scale. Scaled aggregation of multiple demand side resources into reliable grid resources that utilities and grid operators can see and count on consistently requires proactive regulation and oversight, as well as market maturity among the providers.

At the consumer level, program success hinges on people and businesses being willing and able to participate in programs, which may require adoption of new technologies, and a certain level of trust in their utilities (or retail electric providers) and aggregators. And not all customers contributing to the grid are compensated in proportion to the value they provide (which requires the adoption of forward-thinking policies, incentives, and rates).

Five approaches can overcome these challenges.

First, utilities and grid operators need clearer visibility of demand side resources. Fortunately, a myriad of options exists to help, including adopting DERMS or smart building management systems, utilizing more sophisticated models and control devices, allowing third-party aggregators, developing distribution system plans, and creating publicly available hosting capacity maps for customer-sited distributed generation and storage. A handful of states (CA, HI, MN, NV, and NY) require distribution system planning and mapping the distribution system at the circuit level, and the lessons from these states can inform others just starting down this path. States that require utilities to develop integrated resource plans (IRPs) should also require detailed distribution system plans, and those two efforts should be closely coordinated. A combination of tools can improve transparency about the state of the grid, including which technologies are being adopted and what programs might be suitable for managing load. Ideally, these tools could be combined to inform load forecasts and the development of demand-centered programs that can deliver guaranteed peak savings, alongside other reliability and benefits.

Second, enable data sharing across the transmission and distribution systems. In a 2017 report, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) issued a set of data-sharing recommendations to support better integration of distributed energy resources into bulk power system planning and operations. This included a detailed list of data important to support adequate modeling and assessment of bulk power system issues (such as substation-level data with aggregated DER data, transformer ratings, relevant energy characteristics, power factor and/or reactive and real power control functionality, among others). Data underpins visibility, but both sides of the grid need to agree on which data are most important and relevant (and how that data can be shared securely). Shared models that can communicate with one another and utilize said data in the same way is also imperative. All data sharing must be done with an eye to privacy and security protections, which also requires agreements among all participating parties as to what gets shared, in what format, and who gets access.

Third, place energy customers at the center of program and rate design. According to Silverstein, activating the full potential of DR and DSM requires “respectful, negotiated limits with customers, who should be treated as partners and compensated fairly—their economic incentives should be commensurate with any perceived or actual sacrifice and with the value they deliver to the electric system.” Effective programs can also function as educational tools, empowering more electricity customers to play a more active role in supporting grid reliability. Whether through incentives or rates, rebates or discounts, programs should be designed with an eye to scaling participation and optimizing benefits for the grid and all participating customers, including residential and lower-income customers.

Fourth, adopt utility performance incentive mechanisms (PIMs) that put demand side resources on a level playing field with supply side resources. PIMs can help shift the profit-motive by aligning profits with performance on certain metrics, like successful DR or energy efficiency programs. In the era of load growth and climate change, PIMs should target measures that provide reliability and affordability benefits for all customers.

And fifth, consider new approaches aimed at attracting more flexible and grid-supportive loads. This should apply across the electricity system from the wholesale bulk grid down to the distribution system. Rate design and tariffs that encourage or require new load sources to respond to and react to grid conditions, economic signals, and reliability needs could obviate the need for more expensive alternatives down the line. For example, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is proposing the establishment of a Demand Response Monitor to assist market participants and grid operators in making judgements of near-future capacity needs. The Monitor will detect a response by selected load responses attributable to locational marginal prices, coincident peak, conservation alerts, and other ERCOT actions. Over time, ERCOT could use empirical data from the Monitor to predict demand response for other reliability applications.

Rather than automatically approving load interconnection requests, utilities could evaluate their approach to cost allocation for grid upgrades or negotiate tariffs that require customer responsiveness under certain conditions. For example, to mitigate the cost of connecting large new loads like data centers, some utilities are requesting upfront payments to cover infrastructure costs and to mitigate the burden of investments on other customers. Google and NV Energy just announced a first-of-its kind clean transition tariff (pending regulatory approval) that enables Google and other energy users to meet growing power demand cleanly and reliably. Another Google pilot will reduce data center electricity consumption when there is high stress on the local power grid. Automakers and utilities are teaming up to expand managed EV charging programs to get ahead of load management before it becomes a problem at the local or system level. In an era in which multiple new loads are competing for the same space on the grid, utilities should consider rewarding those willing to go the extra mile in being a good grid citizen.

As electricity demand grows, so too should the role of demand side solutions. A renewed focus on the load side of the equation will ensure a more cost-effective and efficient grid built to respond to rapidly changing conditions, while also benefiting and protecting customers and mitigating carbon emissions.

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This post is the fourth in a series titled “Real Talk on Reliability,” which will examine the reliability needs of our grid as we move toward 100 percent clean electricity and electrify more end-uses on the path to a climate…
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This post is part of an ongoing “What Is” series from Energy Innovation that answers some of today’s most pressing climate policy questions.

What Is: Net-Zero

“Net-zero” became a global climate imperative in 2015 when the United Nations determined that to “avoid the most catastrophic outcomes of the climate crisis, emissions must be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 in order to reach net-zero in 2050.”

Since then, more than 140 countries have set a net-zero target while 9,000 companies, 1,000 cities, 1,000 educational institutions, and 600 financial institutions have pledged to halve emissions by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement’s target.

But what is net-zero, exactly? And how can we reach that ambitious but necessary goal?

For climate change, net-zero is like balancing a scale with greenhouse gases (GHG) as the measurement – think of it as an accounting problem, or balancing a checkbook. Reaching net-zero means whatever amount of climate pollution is emitted into the atmosphere is balanced by an equivalent amount being removed from the atmosphere by carbon sinks or carbon removal technologies.

Emissions reductions are the key to reaching net-zero targets, because removing climate pollution from the atmosphere is harder than not polluting in the first place, and technologies to prevent new emissions (e.g., building solar power rather than coal power) are more mature and cheaper to deploy than technologies to remove that pollution from the atmosphere (e.g., direct air capture) after the fact.

Solely defining climate targets via net-zero goals without specific policy details or strict measurement systems also risks accounting tricks by governments or corporations that provide cover for unabated emissions.

The idea became mainstream after the Paris Agreement’s historic signing at the COP21 UN Climate Change Conference. The Paris Agreement quantified net-zero by establishing a goal to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

The world’s six largest GHG emitters –  China, the United States, India, the European Union, Russia, and Brazil – accounted for 61.6 percent of global GHG emissions in 2023. Their largest emitting economic sectors were industry, transportation, agriculture, electricity, and waste.  

Where do Net-Zero Targets Exist

U.S. net-zero targets run the gamut from the Biden administration’s goal of net-zero national emissions by 2050, to Princeton University’s goal of being a net-zero campus by 2040, to Pasadena Water and Power aiming to be net-zero by 2030.

Climate Watch’s net–zero tracker shows the ongoing progress of governmental net-zero targets worldwide. Nearly 100 countries, representing 80.7 percent of global GHG emissions, have shared their net-zero targets. And 149 countries have set goals to reduce their emissions with plans ranging from phasing out coal plants for renewable energy sources like wind and solar to electrifying transportation. Unfortunately, the UN reports these government commitments fall short of the Paris Agreement’s net-zero target.

In 2021, the Biden Administration announced its ambitious target for the U.S. to reduce emissions 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, reaching net-zero by 2050. The Inflation Reduction Act’s climate and clean energy provisions could cut national GHG emissions up to 41 percent by 2030, and additional policy ambition could reach the 50 percent emissions reduction target.

Many states have followed the administration’s lead by publishing their own emissions targets with notably ambitious plans coming out of Louisiana, Michigan, and Nevada. These plans reflect good state policy to cut emissions because in addition to their collective goal of reaching net-zero by 2050, they have intermediary goals to reduce emissions 28 percent by 2025, and Louisiana is aiming for a 40-50 percent reduction by 2030. California has some of the country’s most ambitious state-level net-zero goals, targeting 40 percent emissions reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2045.

Which Corporations Have Net-Zero Targets?

Anything we create or use on a large scale can be covered by a net-zero target and many companies are reducing their emissions using new technologies.

Industrial manufacturers can reduce emissions through clean energy technology. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Demonstrations Program has awarded $6 billion to 33 projects demonstrating the ability to reduce GHG from high emitting industrial sectors, and one awardee, Cleveland-Cliffs is using federal funds to replace their blast furnace steel mill with a ‘hydrogen-ready’ iron plant as part of their net-zero by 2050 plan. On a smaller scale, manufacturers like Colorado’s New Belgium Brewery are switching to industrial electric heat pumps to make steam needed for brewing beer instead of relying on gas.

These technologies also scale up. Google is targeting net-zero by 2030 and has begun cutting its emissions. The company’s ‘Accelerating Clean Energy’ program with Amazon, Duke Energy, Nucor,  and Microsoft aims to spur long-term clean energy investments and develop new electricity rate structures. Technology companies like Google are important to net-zero targets, as new data centers increase energy demand alongside the nascent U.S. manufacturing boom and increasing building and vehicle electrification. Fortunately clean energy can meet growing electricity demand without gas through strategies like building new renewables to meet new load or reusing heat produced in data centers.

Policy to Achieve Net-Zero Emissions

Smart climate policy can help reach government or private sector net-zero targets. Both states and countries around the world are working towards meeting their climate goals, including how they can best reach their net-zero targets. In China, India, and the U.S., switching from internal combustion engines that run on fossil fuels to electric vehicles and transitioning power grids to clean energy are helping cut emissions.

Industry – manufacturing everything we use from chemicals to cars – is a growing source of emissions and must be addressed to hit net-zero targets. 39 percent of global GHG emissions come from energy used for heating and cooling, one-third of which comes from the industrial sector. Industry is forecast to be the largest source of U.S. emissions within a decade, and manufacturing everything from chemicals to cars emits 77 percent of national industrial emissions. Government policy that enables industries worldwide to transition away from fossil fuels and reach zero-carbon industry can cut emissions, consumer costs, and public health impacts.

Government officials, corporations, and organizations with net-zero targets have many policy options available to reduce emissions. Several specific recommendations could make the largest

Policies that encourage faster renewable energy deployment and strengthen the grid:

Incentives for renewables
Permitting reform for clean energy
More efficient grid interconnection processes

Policies that supercharge electrification:

Electric vehicle charging infrastructure
New building standards covering electric heating and cooking
Robust domestic manufacturing for electrified technologies

Policies that halt further lock-in of fossil fuel infrastructure

Sunset clauses for existing infrastructure
Strict regulation for new infrastructure like pipelines or export terminals
Subsidy reallocations

Policies that remove carbon from the atmosphere

Forest preservation and better agricultural practices to act as carbon sinks
Carbon dioxide removal through technologies like carbon capture and sequestration, and direct air capture

The post What Is Net-Zero appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

This post is part of an ongoing “What Is” series from Energy Innovation that answers some of today’s most pressing climate policy questions. What Is: Net-Zero “Net-zero” became a global climate imperative in 2015 when the United Nations determined that…
The post What Is Net-Zero appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.[#item_full_content]

By Devan Crane, a Program Associate for Aspen Global Change Institute.

Global supply chains are frequently disrupted by economic crises, wars, and political conflicts, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused a unique disruption felt by all. With the widespread damage to economies worldwide, food supply chains became stagnant, jeopardizing food security for many. Both urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture, which takes place on the outskirts of cities, can contribute to regional food supply and shorten supply chains, enhancing both community control and resilience of food systems. But urban and peri-urban farmers face unique challenges in a rapidly urbanizing world. Emerging research sheds light on common challenges and solutions to preserving the resilience that urban agriculture affords our food systems.

What is urban and peri-urban agriculture?

Urban agriculture (UA) encompasses diverse practices within a city’s limits, from small apartment balcony gardens and raised grow beds in homeowners’ yards to neighborhood community gardens and walkable food forests to large-scale production plots and high-tech commercial rooftop gardens. Peri-urban agriculture (PUA) includes a similar diversity of practices, but occurs at the fringes of urban areas, where urban and rural lands blend. Peri-urban farms can be much larger than urban farms due to land use factors like zoning and land availability. 

With rapid urban expansion, farms that were once rural can be enveloped by a city’s new development. Seventy percent of the global population is expected to live in cities by 2050 (Campbell et al. 2023), and the expansion of cities will continue to push agriculture into the periphery. As cities expand, farmers will have to adapt their farms to more urbanized land use policies and growing conditions (Figure 1) or be forced to relocate.

In a 2023 review of the benefits that peri-urban agriculture can provide to urban dwellers, also known as “ecosystem services,” Mulya and colleagues note that “many cities, especially those in developing nations, have limited access to fresh water, increased waste and sanitation problems, lack access to green spaces, and have declining public health.” Beyond offering urban residents opportunities to reconnect with nature and assert control over their food systems, urban and peri-urban agriculture can also help to mitigate some of the negative health and environmental impacts associated with urban development. 

Both types of agriculture can offer many environmental and health benefits, including improving livelihoods and community connection, conserving wildlife habitats, promoting physical activity, and providing therapeutic relief. PUA and UA can also shorten food supply chains by reducing the distance between producers and consumers, and add value to waste through the use of local food scraps for on-farm compost or upcycled materials, like wood for raised beds. Well managed agricultural land has also been shown to improve soil, water, and air quality in surrounding areas, as healthy soil increases absorption area for runoff water and plants absorb CO2. 

But farming in and near cities is not without its challenges. Urban land is typically heavily polluted from vehicle outputs, road runoff, artificial light, and human-made noise. Moreover, urban land is scarce and in high demand, making it expensive, and it is often not permitted for agricultural activities.

“Necessity is the mother of invention”

A report from CGIAR Initiative on Resilient Cities showcases several examples of how peri-urban and urban agriculture have improved food system resilience in communities of Sri Lanka and Ukraine during times of instability. The report explores recent efforts to increase food system resilience, comparing them to past efforts. 

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, for example, Cuba no longer received subsidized fuel and agricultural products from the USSR and faced a restrictive trade embargo from the US. These changes caused a sixty percent decline in available food for the people of Cuba. In response, Cuba’s national agricultural program directed municipalities and organizations to cultivate all unused land with intensive organic agriculture. While the effort was not enough to feed all of Cuba’s population, it greatly reduced food unavailability. It was an impressive development from Cuba’s national agricultural program, which was essentially non-existent before the collapse and is now a full-force production system of over 300,000 urban farms and gardens that produce about fifty percent of the island’s fresh produce. 

Sri Lanka experienced destabilized food security during the onset of the COVID pandemic, followed by a larger economic crisis that started in 2022. In response, the Colombo Municipal Council in Sri Lanka’s capital city called for the cultivation of food crops on 593 acres of public land within the city – and planted the lawn in front of Town Hall with crops. The Council developed a webpage to encourage schools and citizens to cultivate every inch of bare land, balconies, and rooftops. The central government even gave public servants Fridays off to grow crops, and the army was mobilized to produce organic fertilizer and cultivate state lands. As in Cuba, this was an impressive organizational effort for the Colombo Municipal Council, as there was no government department focused on urban agriculture before the pandemic.

Urban agriculture has become a new necessity for Ukraine’s urban residents as well. Russia’s invasion of the country collapsed supply chains and caused food price shocks around the world. Vegetable prices have risen 85 to 150 percent, eggs have doubled in price, and Ukrainians now spend 70 percent of their income on food (compared to 23 percent before the war).

In response, public and private initiatives and support from the United Nations Development Program and Canada are scaling up urban farming efforts in many Ukrainian cities. These efforts are either entirely new or built upon existing campaigns, like the zero waste and organic food movements. One initiative offered free seeds to vulnerable populations to cultivate home and balcony gardens, similar to the victory gardens of World War One and World War Two. Additional support is also being provided by way of online education on urban farming.

What challenges do urban farmers face?

These examples can serve as a blueprint for policymakers and communities looking to bolster resilience in food systems that are increasingly susceptible to shocks from extreme climate disasters, natural hazards, geopolitical strife, and long-term climate impacts on agriculture. But scaling up urban and peri-urban agriculture will require overcoming some of the unique challenges these growers experience. In a recent article published in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, Catherine Campbell and colleagues conducted a needs assessment of commercial-scale urban farmers in Florida.

Of the 29 urban farmers surveyed and interviewed by Campbell’s team, 90 percent owned or operated farms that had been in existence for 10 or fewer years, and 60 percent were in operation for five years or less. Eighty-three percent of their urban farms were five acres or less, while the average Florida farm is 246 acres (Census of Agriculture 2022). Vegetables were among their top three crops in gross sales, and a majority sold direct to consumers at farmers markets.

Farmers in the Campbell et al. study reported several advantages of farming in urban areas, such as providing opportunities for consumers to visit their farm and/or market stall, which can help to build deep relationships with their consumers.

Another benefit was the proximity of their farms to urban markets, which reduced travel time and cost associated with post-production transportation. Farming near large urban and peri-urban populations also made it easier for the farmers to find employees and volunteers to work on the farm.

But the study also surfaced common challenges facing urban and peri-urban farmers. Proximity to city dwellers was seen as a hindrance by some farmers. Curious neighbors can disrupt work or dislike the smells and noise that come with farm operations. Additionally, organic farmers need to know if their residential neighbors are spraying chemicals on their properties, as organic certifications often specify barrier lengths needed to protect crops from non-organic inputs.

Zoning and land-use regulations are another barrier farmers identified in both the Campbell and Mulya papers. Land use is often decided prior to land development, and city planners often don’t consider agriculture an urban activity. Conducting everyday farming activities, such as building a shed or driving a tractor, on land that is not specifically zoned for agriculture can require special fees and permits, adding time and expense to normal farm operations.
Furthermore, urban land is highly sought after by developers, as agricultural land is not valued as highly as residential land. Residentially or commercially zoned land is valued instead on its potential to be developed as a housing unit or a shopping center. Several farmers even reported being harassed by developers to sell their land for development.

Start-up capital is also limited for urban farmers. Most urban farms do not qualify for the same loans, grants, or subsidies that rural farms do, making up-front investments costly, regardless of farmers’ creditworthiness. This challenge is compounded when urban farmers don’t own their land, which was the case for over half those surveyed in Campell’s study. They have little control over future land use and are vulnerable to land use change, a barrier also mentioned by Mulya and colleagues.

How can we invest in urban and peri-urban agriculture?

Peri-urban and urban agriculture are by no means a cure-all, but they present significant opportunities to enhance food security, resilience, and sustainability in the face of global change.

When asked how barriers and challenges could be addressed, farmers mentioned that targeted government support, such as public assistance, education, grants, and subsidies would be helpful. Researchers also see a need for capacity building within governments to help maintain and develop peri-urban and urban agriculture areas and encourage policymakers to be strategic about how they think about land use change and land valuation (Mulya et al. 2023).

Whether the stresses stem from chronic urbanization pressures or acute shocks, researchers point to several avenues that can help build food system resilience:

Government Leadership: Governments play a crucial role in promoting and supporting peri-urban and urban agriculture through policies, incentives, and initiatives that prioritize food security and sustainable urban development.
Land Use Change Mitigation: Efforts should be made to mitigate land use changes that threaten peri-urban and urban farming, ensuring that agricultural land is protected and valued appropriately.
Zoning: Revisiting zoning regulations to accommodate and encourage urban agriculture can help remove barriers and create a supportive environment for farmers.
Subsidies, Grants, Financial Capital: Providing financial support, such as making subsidies and grants more inclusive, can help new and existing farmers overcome the high costs associated with urban farming, making it a more viable option.
Education: Investing in educational programs and resources focused on urban farming can help build capacity, transfer knowledge, and support the growth of the sector.
Valuation of other benefits: Recognizing and valuing the social, environmental, and therapeutic benefits of peri-urban and urban agriculture can help justify and prioritize its development.
Further Research: Continued research is needed to better understand how peri-urban and urban agriculture can contribute to food systems, improve resilience, and enhance overall sustainability.

By addressing these areas, policymakers, stakeholders, and communities can promote and strengthen peri-urban and urban agriculture, creating more resilient and sustainable food systems for the future.

Featured Research:

Setyardi Pratika Mulya, S., Hidayat Putro, H. P., & Hudalah, D. 2023. Review of peri-urban agriculture as a regional ecosystem service. Geography and Sustainability, 4(3), 244-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2023.06.001.

Andrew Adam-Bradford, Pay Drechsel (2023). “Urban agriculture during economic crisis: Lessons from Cuba, Sri Lanka and Ukraine.” International Water Management Institute.https://cgspace.cgiar.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7f14f676-0639-4314-8af6-a04549a3fa7a/content.

Campbell CG, DeLong AN, Diaz JM. Commercial urban agriculture in Florida: a qualitative needs assessment. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. 2023;38:e4. doi:10.1017/S1742170522000370.

The post Building Food System Resilience Through Urban Agriculture appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

By Devan Crane, a Program Associate for Aspen Global Change Institute. Global supply chains are frequently disrupted by economic crises, wars, and political conflicts, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused a unique disruption felt by all. With the widespread damage to…
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By Kaitlin Sullivan, a freelance journalist based in Colorado. She has a master’s in health and science reporting from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

In 2023, hospitals in Florida, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles shut down. Some evacuated patients in preparation for hurricanes feeding off of warming coastal waters, others were forced to close after historic rainfall cut power to a city of nearly four million people. On the other side of the globe, floods and landslides shuttered 12 health care facilities in five provinces in southern Thailand.

Which is why in December 2023, delegates from all 199 countries of the United Nations met in Dubai to attend the first-ever Health Day at a Conference of Parties (COP) summit. The COP28 meeting highlighted the fact that the climate crisis is also a health crisis.

Health care systems around the world are already being strained by natural disasters and heatwaves, something experts predict will worsen in the coming decades.

For example, Pakistan’s devastating floods in 2022 impacted an estimated 1,460+ health care facilities, about 10  percent of the country’s total. The following weeks saw outbreaks of both water-borne and vector-borne infectious diseases, adding to the burden thrust upon the already weakened health care system.

Summer 2023 was also the hottest on record, marked by deadly heat waves and wildfires that tore through forests, seas, and cities.

“The northern hemisphere just had a summer of extremes — with repeated heat waves fueling devastating wildfires, harming health, disrupting daily lives and wreaking a lasting toll on the environment,” World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

In Arizona, the extreme heat put pressure on power grids and spurred an influx of people in need of medical care for heat stress. Heat-related emergency room visits rose by 50 percent on days that reached a wet-bulb temperature of at least 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit, a 2021 Taiwanese study found. Simply put, wet-bulb temperatures take into account both heat and humidity, which makes it more difficult for sweat to evaporate and therefore harder for people to cool themselves.

Over the past five years, the number of heatstroke patients admitted to hospitals in Pakistan during the summer months increased around 20 percent annually, the medical director of a Pakistani hospital told The Washington Post. In that time, Pakistan endured three of its five hottest summers.

The recent hospital closures in Pakistan, Thailand, and the United States are representative of a larger trend that’s already in motion. According to the World Health Organization, 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change. A recent paper led by Renee Salas, published in Nature Medicine, used the United States, a country with one of the most robust health systems in the world, to illustrate how climate change will impact both the number of people needing medical care as well as hospitals’ ability to carry out that care.

From 2011 to 2016, floods, storms, and hurricanes caused over $1 billion in damages across the U.S. Using Medicare data from that timeframe, Salas and colleagues found that in the week following an extreme weather event, emergency room visits and deaths rose between 1.2 percent and 1.4 percent, and deaths remained elevated for six weeks following the event.

The researchers also found that mortality rates were two to four times higher in counties that experienced the greatest economic losses following a disaster. Moreover, these counties also had higher emergency department use, highlighting how damage to infrastructure, such as power outages and thwarted transportation, can compound the toll climate change takes on human health.

Future Threats

Between 2030 and 2050, climate change-driven malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress are expected to cause 250,000 additional deaths per year. And climate change is expected to worsen more than half of known human pathogenic diseases, expanding the range of fungal infections and increasing the risk of viral pathogens and mosquito-borne diseases.

At the same time, health care infrastructure will face increasing strain from the impacts of extreme weather –– power outages, flooding, damage to buildings –– as well as from the mounting health issues, infections, and diseases exacerbated by climate change.

A December 2023 report published by XDI (Cross Dependency Initiative), an Australian climate risk data company, estimated that by the end of this century, one in twelve hospitals worldwide could be at risk of total or partial shutdown due to extreme weather.

The researchers used two versions of the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) to compare the projected risks to hospital infrastructure in two different scenarios of a global temperature rise of about 1.8˚C vs. 4.3˚C by the year 2100. The researchers also examined the increase in climate risk to 200,216 hospitals around the globe from flooding, fires, and cyclones. At worst, fires can completely destroy buildings, but they also create dangerous levels of air pollution and smoke that can land more patients in the hospital and strain those already being treated. Flooding and cyclones can render hospitals unusable.

In both low- and high-emissions scenarios, a significant number of the study hospitals would be at high risk of total or partial shutdown by 2100: 12,011 (6 percent) in the lower emissions scenario, compared to 16,245 (8 percent) hospitals in the high-emissions scenario. Under the worst case scenario, 10,744 hospitals –– more than 5 percent of those included in the analysis –– would already be high risk by 2050. The lower risk scenario doesn’t project a much better outcome, estimating that 10,043 hospitals would still be high risk in 2050.

Human-driven climate change has already increased damage to hospitals by 41 percent between 1990 and 2020. Nowhere is this phenomenon more prevalent than in Southeast Asia, which has seen a 67 percent increase in risk of damage since 1990. On this trajectory, one in five hospitals in Southeast Asia would be at high risk for climate-driven damage by the end of the century. More than 70 percent of these hospitals would be in low-to-middle-income nations.

The XDI report estimated more than 5,800 hospitals in South Asia, an area that includes India, the world’s most populous country, would be at high risk for shutting down under the 4.3˚C increase scenario. More than half of hospitals in the Central African Republic and more than one-quarter of hospitals in the Philippines and Nepal would face the same fate.

Contrary to popular belief, high-income nations are also not immune. The model projected that North America would experience the biggest increase in risk of weather-driven damage to hospital infrastructure by 2100, with a more than five-fold increase compared to 2020.

If world leaders can limit warming to 1.8˚C and rapidly phase out fossil fuels starting now, the data suggests the risk of damage to hospitals would be cut in half by the end of the century compared to the high-emissions scenario.

How Hospitals Can Prepare

Hospitals need to brace for a future with more demand for care and a higher risk of infrastructure being damaged by extreme weather.

In a February 2024 review published in International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Yvonne Zurynski led a team of researchers that used data from 60 studies published in 2022 and 2023 to identify ways in which the healthcare system can build resilience in the midst of a changing climate. Forty-four of the studies reviewed focused on the strains climate change puts on health care workforces, most commonly hospital staff. The same number of studies also reported how hospitals plan to respond to a climate-related event, most commonly hurricanes, followed by floods and wildfires. The plans included how hospitals could minimize staff burnout and safely evacuate patients if needed.

The team found six key ways hospitals and health workers can adapt to the health system impacts of climate change: training/skill development, workforce capacity planning, interdisciplinary collaboration, role flexibility, role incentivization, and psychological support.

For training and skills development, the studies agreed that all health care workers should be trained to recognize and treat climate-specific health conditions, including wildfire smoke exposure, heat stroke, and water-borne diseases.

Infrastructure must be designed to be more climate resilient. Many facilities are susceptible to power outages or are not equipped to cope with wildfire smoke or the loss of running water. Being prepared also includes training staff in techniques to evacuate patients from hospitals that can no longer run due to a climate change-fueled extreme weather event.

Health care systems also need to be flexible and respond to climate-driven health crises as they emerge. This approach encompasses workforce capacity planning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and role flexibility. In practice, such an approach may include hiring care staff with multiple specialties, to ensure health care teams can be flexible when unexpected pressures arise.

Health care systems can also incentivize work during high-pressure events. This strategy could take a physical form, such as compensating staff extra for working during a climate response. It could also be intrinsic. Staff may feel it is their duty to work during a climate-related disaster, feeling a duty to both their profession and the people they serve, the authors write. Both are examples of role incentivization.

To make this approach sustainable, it is paramount that health systems have a network in place to care for their employees’ mental health. Providing psychological support was a recurring theme in the studies Zurynski and her team reviewed. Hospitals could have mental health professionals on call during or after climate events that put pressure on health systems, or recalculate shifts during a disaster to ensure every employee has adequate time to recuperate. A volunteer or reserve workforce that is pulled into action during or following an extreme weather event or infectious disease outbreak could also alleviate some of the stress on health care workers during these times.

Making significant changes to the way hospitals operate may seem daunting, but facilities can start small in their adaptations and create solutions unique to their needs. An example of this approach can be found in a region already steeply impacted by climate change.

About half of all hospitals in Vietnam do not have a reliable source of water, meaning patients often have to bring their own. Faced with this major obstacle to care, three rural hospitals in Vietnam were chosen for a pilot project to make them more climate resilient, starting with water. Water availability in all three hospitals is already a significant challenge due to droughts, floods, and creeping saltwater intrusion.

Despite their water challenges, all three institutions in the pilot found unique ways to guard against existing and growing climate threats through community engagement, installation of rainwater catchment and storage systems, saline filtration, and better infrastructure to capture nearby streamflows.

Climate change impacts are already pushing health care systems into higher levels of risk, and that trend will continue. It’s vital that hospital leadership teams begin shaping plans for climate resiliency, both related to infrastructure and personnel, to safeguard health care on a changing planet.

Cited Resources:

Alied, M., Salam, A., Sediqi, S. M., Kwaah, P. A., Tran, L., & Huy, N. T. (2023). Disaster after disaster: the outbreak of infectious diseases in Pakistan in the wake of 2022 floods. Annals of medicine and surgery (2012), 86(2), 891–898. https://doi.org/10.1097/MS9.0000000000001597.

Borah, B. F., Meddaugh, P., Fialkowski, V., & Kwit, N. (2024). Using Insurance Claims Data to Estimate Blastomycosis Incidence, Vermont, USA, 2011–2020. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 30(2), 372-375. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid3002.230825.

Cross Dependency Institute. (2023). 2023 XDI Global Hospital Infrastructure Physical Climate Risk Report. XDI Benchmark Series. https://www.preventionweb.net/quick/82047.

He, Y., Liu, W. J., Jia, N., Richardson, S., & Huang, C. (2023). Viral respiratory infections in a rapidly changing climate: the need to prepare for the next pandemic. EBioMedicine, 93, 104593. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2023.104593.

Lung, S. C., Yeh, J. J., & Hwang, J. S. (2021). Selecting Thresholds of Heat-Warning Systems with Substantial Enhancement of Essential Population Health Outcomes for Facilitating Implementation. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(18), 9506. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189506.

Mora, C., McKenzie, T., Gaw, I. M., Dean, J. M., von Hammerstein, H., Knudson, T. A., Setter, R. O., Smith, C. Z., Webster, K. M., Patz, J. A., & Franklin, E. C. (2022). Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change. Nature climate change, 12(9), 869–875. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01426-1.

Salas, R. N., Burke, L. G., Phelan, J., Wellenius, G. A., Orav, E. J., & Jha, A. K. (2024). Impact of extreme weather events on healthcare utilization and mortality in the United States. Nature medicine, 30(4), 1118–1126. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-02833-x.

Wang, Y., Zhao, S., Wei, Y., Li, K., Jiang, X., Li, C., Ren, C., Yin, S., Ho, J., Ran, J., Han, L., Zee, B. C., & Chong, K. C. (2023). Impact of climate change on dengue fever epidemics in South and Southeast Asian settings: A modelling study. Infectious Disease Modelling, 8(3), 645–655. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idm.2023.05.008.

Ye, T., Guo, Y., Chen, G., Yue, X., Xu, R., Coêlho, M. S. Z. S., Saldiva, P. H. N., Zhao, Q., & Li, S. (2021). Risk and burden of hospital admissions associated with wildfire-related PM2·5 in Brazil, 2000-15: a nationwide time-series study. The Lancet. Planetary health, 5(9), e599–e607. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00173-X.

Zurynski, Y., Fisher, G., Wijekulasuriya, S., Leask, E., Dharmayani, P. N. A., Ellis, L. A., Smith, C. L., & Braithwaite, J. (2024). Bolstering health systems to cope with the impacts of climate change events: A review of the evidence on workforce planning, upskilling, and capacity building. The International journal of health planning and management, 10.1002/hpm.3769. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.3769.

The post Before The Next Storm: Building Health Care Resilience appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

By Kaitlin Sullivan, a freelance journalist based in Colorado. She has a master’s in health and science reporting from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. In 2023, hospitals in Florida, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles shut down. Some…
The post Before The Next Storm: Building Health Care Resilience appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.[#item_full_content]

By Rebecca Rasch, Social Scientist at Aspen Global Change Institute

While electric vehicles (EVs) are not a panacea for reducing emissions from the transportation sector, widespread adoption can be a significant step toward meeting CO2 reduction targets. In a recent study of EV adoption in China, the authors estimate that even a one percent increase in a city’s EV sales can reduce local net CO2 emissions in both the city itself and a nearby city. 

These benefits are especially salient in environmental justice (EJ) communities, where people are disproportionately burdened by environmental hazards such as smog from car exhaust, leading to higher rates of childhood and adult asthma and cardiovascular problems.

Overcoming cost barriers

While lack of charging infrastructure is a key barrier to making the EV transition across the socioeconomic divide, low-income consumers in particular are grappling with two additional barriers: vehicle purchase cost and the risk of high maintenance and repair costs. The good news is that in the U.S., policy interventions and subsidies are poised to address upfront vehicle costs. Clean vehicle tax credits, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, provide purchasers of used models with a maximum tax credit of up to $4,000 or 30 percent off the cost of the preowned vehicle.

The potential for high repair costs, however, is more difficult to tackle. A 2023 Consumer Reports poll found that EVs are less reliable overall, compared to combustion engine vehicles. In a recent article in Business Insider, the authors note that Hertz is scaling back its EV rental fleet due to high repair costs. If an EV battery is damaged in a collision, it could cost between $5,000 and $15,000 to replace – which is especially problematic for low-income consumers. In a recent article published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, study authors Klein, Basu, and Smart found that high repair and maintenance costs are the main reason that low-income households transition into and out of car ownership. They tend to buy used cars and, when their cars break down, they are unable to pay for repairs. Among those surveyed who lost access to their car (1,103 of 3,358 total respondents), 32 percent experienced job loss as a result, and 58 percent reported that job opportunities decreased.

Impacts on health and well-being

Low-income households surveyed who had lost access to a car noted, too, that it impacted health care and caregiving responsibilities because they no longer had a car to access medical care or to bring children to school.

In addition, 52 percent of those surveyed reported a negative effect on their quality of life. Interestingly, for a minority, the loss of a car improved their quality of life, as they were relieved to be free of the financial burden. However, as Klein and colleagues found, 78 percent of survey respondents agreed that the vehicle purchase was “worth it.”

Advancing equitable policy solutions

So what are equitable policy solutions that will set society on a trajectory to reduce both transportation sector emissions and asthma in EJ communities, without overburdening the most vulnerable with the risk of losing their cars because of high repair costs?

While EV subsidies are a good way to encourage low-income households to enter the EV market, policy makers must also consider the full lifecycle costs of vehicle ownership and the risk of the most vulnerable households having to transition out of car ownership if costly maintenance and repairs are required. Strategic investments in EV adoption by institutions that can afford to incur that risk is one pathway to improving the overall affordability of EVs in the long term.

Investments in EV government fleets and public transportation are a win-win for low-income communities

At the community level, investing in EV heavy-duty fleets (school buses, delivery vehicles) makes sense right now. The overall costs of EVs, including operation, service, and maintenance over the life of the vehicles, is estimated to be on par with or lower than combustion engine vehicles, especially when the high cost of diesel fuel is factored in. Subsidies and policies that facilitate the transition to cleaner heavy-duty vehicles are especially beneficial to EJ communities, as the link between diesel emissions and higher asthma rates for Black and Latino children in communities overburdened by pollution is well-established (AAFA 2005; Weir 2002).

One great example of a subsidy targeted at the community level is Clean School Bus Rebates (CSB), an Environmental Protection Agency program funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It provides subsidies to school bus fleet owners to replace existing fleets with clean and zero-emission vehicles, as well as subsidies for EV charging infrastructure. For the 2023 application, the EPA estimates allocating $500 million in total funding.

EVs improve environmental quality

A common criticism of electric vehicles is the associated rise in emissions for the electricity generation required to charge the vehicles.

In an article in Heliyon documenting the impact of EVs on the environment and carbon emissions, Xiaolei Zhao and colleagues found that when internal combustion engine vehicles are replaced by EVs, there are significant reductions in emissions, even when 50 percent of the electricity is generated by fossil fuels. T The authors demonstrate that the net emissions impact of EV adoption is likely negative, as CO2 reductions from a transition to EVs would outstrip the increase in emissions due to increased consumption of electricity. Emissions reductions are expected to come from both the direct substitution of internal combustion engines with EVs, and EV manufacturer-led increases in technological innovation in the transportation sector,, which are expected to reduce traffic congestion and associated emissions.

One important caveat is the moderating effect of the energy structure. Expanded EV adoption could spur increases in the carbon emissions of cities that are wholly reliant on fossil fuel energy generation, though this increase is likely temporary as grids shift to include more renewable energy sources. From an environmental quality perspective, it still makes sense for environmental justice communities to invest in EV fleets, which will provide direct air quality benefits today, deliver potential carbon reduction benefits in the near future, and advance equity in access to EV charging.

Thanks to hefty government subsidies and consumer demand, trends suggest that in the next few years,  , reliability will improve, and charging networks will scale up and become more equally distributed across low-income neighborhoods.  They are also well on their way to becoming a smart choice for low-income consumers in the coming decade as vehicle affordability improves.

Featured Research:

Klein, Nicholas J., Rounaq Basu, and Michael J. Smart. 2023. “Transitions into and out of Car Ownership among Low-Income Households in the United States.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 0739456X2311637. doi: 10.1177/0739456X231163755.Zhao, Xiaolei, Hui Hu, Hongjie Yuan, and Xin Chu. 2023. “How Does Adoption of Electric Vehicles Reduce Carbon Emissions? Evidence from China.” Heliyon 9(9):e20296. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20296.

Linked News Articles:

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/electric-vehicles-are-less-reliable-than-conventional-cars-a1047214174/ Accessed Jan 22 2024.

https://www.businessinsider.com/electric-car-service-maintenance-car-buyers-tips-dealers-cost-2023-2

See https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/linking-air-pollution-and-heart-disease

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/taxused.shtml

The post Reducing The Risk Of Investing In Electric Vehicles For Low-Income Consumers appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

By Rebecca Rasch, Social Scientist at Aspen Global Change Institute While electric vehicles (EVs) are not a panacea for reducing emissions from the transportation sector, widespread adoption can be a significant step toward meeting CO2 reduction targets. In a recent…
The post Reducing The Risk Of Investing In Electric Vehicles For Low-Income Consumers appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.[#item_full_content]

By Asa DeHaan, Research Technician at Aspen Global Change Institute and Elise Osenga, Community Science Manager at Aspen Global Change Institute.

The Unseen World

Beneath the ground, a diverse ecosystem teems with microscopic life. The soil microbiome is a complex life system dominated by bacteria, fungi, viruses, and numerous other microorganisms. This cast of players performs many functions from nitrogen fixation (converting nitrogen from the atmosphere to a form that plants can more readily use for growth) to decomposition to carbon storage. Compared to the volume of science conducted above ground, relatively little is known about this hidden world, but recent research is opening new windows into how microbiomes may shape and be shaped by a changing climate.

The Plant-Microbe Relationship 

The relationship between microbes and plants is particularly complex (Fig. 1) and has direct consequences for agricultural productivity. However, climate change may alter the function and composition of soil microbial communities. Drought is already having widespread impacts on plants and microbiomes, with consequences for agriculture and rangeland productivity around the world. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report found that as the climate changes, many regions experience more frequent and more intense droughts. For many areas, rising temperatures translate into increased water loss from soils and water bodies, changes to patterns and duration of snow cover, and shifts in the timing and intensity of precipitation events (IPCC AR6, Chpt 11). Still in question is how ecosystems, and the microbiomes they are grounded in, will adapt.

Amidst these environmental shifts, researchers are considering the capabilities of plant-microbe interactions to offer a pathway to resilience. In a review of the literature on microbial potential to support successful sustainable agriculture published in the journal Microbes, Antoszewski and colleagues found that microbes can improve plant resilience to environmental stressors. Plants attract “stress microbiomes” through a chemical signal, which allows the plants to adapt to environmental conditions, such as drought, by improving water use efficiency, plant water content, CO2 assimilation rates, chlorophyll content, and plant productivity. Drought affects not only plant growth and yield but also the composition and functionality of the soil microbiome. The presence of drought-resistant bacteria increases under drought conditions. Deeper understanding of the symbiosis between plants and stress microbiomes in the soil could illuminate potential strategies for enhancing plant survival in drought-prone areas amid climate change.

However, a new greenhouse experiment by University of Illinois researchers Ricks and Yannarell indicates that some soil microbial communities may adapt to drought independent of plant signals. The researchers observed plant health under contrasting conditions of water availability. Using a soil mix that included field samples from a local restored tallgrass prairie, they created pots that were either planted with mustard plants (Abidopsis thaliana or Brassica rapa) or left as bare soil. Over the course of three plant generations, different groups of pots received different watering regimes, with some pots experiencing simulated drought. For a fourth and final generation of plants, the researchers compared how well plants performed based on their watering history vs. the watering history of the soils in which they were planted.  They found that soil microbes appeared to adapt to their environments (either wet or dry) regardless of whether or not their associated host plants were present at the time of simulated drought. Further, plants introduced into formerly unplanted, drought-exposed soils performed better under future water-limited conditions than plants grown in soils whose microbes had not previously undergone simulated drought. While Ricks and Yannarell acknowledge that their experiment focuses on only a small subset of microbe-host plant interactions, the study opens new questions about the potential for plant-independent microbial adaptation to drought and outcomes for plant survival in regions facing a drier future.

Recent research from J.M. Lavallee and colleagues published in Nature Communications found that land management practices may also play a role in determining how drought influences soil microbial communities. The study was carried out across a series of mesotrophic grasslands (meadows used for haymaking and pasture) in the United Kingdom and found that intensive grassland management, characterized by regular application of fertilizer and lime, favors drought-resistant soil microbial bacteria. By contrast, the same intensive management practices had the opposite effect on fungal taxa, leading drought-sensitive fungi to comprise a larger portion of the overall fungi community in the soil. This differential response between bacteria and fungi under varying management intensities suggests that intensive management may favor bacterial dominance over fungi following drought. Because bacteria and fungi perform different (although sometimes overlapping) functions in the soil, shifts in the dominant composition of the community could have implications for plant species composition, ecosystem drought resilience, and even carbon storage.

Players In The Carbon Cycle

Simultaneous research on the carbon cycle suggests that microbial communities may be more important than previously understood when it comes to estimating alterations to the climate. One such study by Heidi-Jayne Hawkins and colleagues looked at mycorrhizal fungi, commonly found across many landscapes. Through a symbiotic relationship, the soil fungi help certain plants absorb water and nutrients from the soil, receiving carbohydrates in return. During this process, the fungi transport carbon to deep soil layers, contributing to long-term carbon storage (Fig. 2).

When mycelium, the fungal threads, die, they become “necromass,” an organic material that helps to form and stabilize soil aggregates, which protect soils from erosion and decomposition and stabilize soil organic carbon. Looking at 194 datasets to estimate the total carbon storage pool associated with mycorrhizae, Hawkins and colleagues estimated that plant hosts allocate (at least temporarily) around 13.12 metric gigatons of carbon dioxide a year to soil fungi around the globe. This volume, equal to roughly a third of from fossil fuels, suggests that mycorrhizal fungi contribute more to the building of soil organic carbon pools than either living fungal biomass or plant litter. The researchers assert that a quantitative assessment of carbon storage resulting from mycorrhizal-plant interactions is critical to more fully understanding carbon fluxes and better modeling future rates of climate change.

A current research review by Mason et al. similarly calls for more attention to the role of microbiomes by looking at how soil amendments and inoculations impact microbiomes and carbon storage. The review discusses both fungi and bacteria, noting how different microbes are intertwined with carbon cycle processes. While the relationship of soil fungi in carbon storage has been studied, the role of soil-bound bacteria has not been examined as closely, even though some bacteria appear to play a similar role as fungi in carbon storage. For example, one group of bacteria, Actinomycetes, can produce a filamentous structure that can store carbon underground. These bacteria can contribute to soil biomass and necromass and are capable of surviving extreme conditions. However, much remains unknown about soil bacterial capacities in building carbon sequestration.

Climate Resilience And The Future

These recent explorations into the soil microbiome uncover a vast, intricate world beneath our feet, where microorganisms play vital and rapidly changing roles in agriculture, climate resilience, and carbon sequestration. As climate change alters our landscapes, studies such as those by Antoszewski et al., Ricks and Yannarell, Hawkins et al., and Lavallee et al. shed light on the adaptability of microbial communities and their potential to mitigate the impacts of climate change or even climate change itself. But even as this current boom in research uncovers the complex network of interdependence humans rely on from the ground up, it also reveals many areas still ripe for further investigation.

Featured Research

Lavallee, J.M., Chomel, M., Alvarez Segura, N. et al. Land management shapes drought responses of dominant soil microbial taxa across grasslands. Nat Commun 15, 29 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43864-1

Mason, A. R. G., Salomon, M. J., Lowe, A. J., & Cavagnaro, T. R. (2023). Microbial solutions to soil carbon sequestration. Journal of Cleaner Production, 417, 137993. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.137993

Hawkins, H.-J., Cargill, R. I. M., Van Nuland, M. E., Hagen, S. C., Field, K. J., Sheldrake, M., Soudzilovskaia, N. A., & Kiers, E. T. (2023). Mycorrhizal mycelium as a global carbon pool. Current Biology, 33(11), R560-R573. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.027

Ricks, K.D., & Yannarell, A.C. (2023). Soil moisture incidentally selects for microbes that facilitate locally adaptive plant response. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290 29020230469. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0469

The post What Small But Mighty: The Role Of Microbes In A Changing Climate appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

By Asa DeHaan, Research Technician at Aspen Global Change Institute and Elise Osenga, Community Science Manager at Aspen Global Change Institute. The Unseen World Beneath the ground, a diverse ecosystem teems with microscopic life. The soil microbiome is a complex…
The post What Small But Mighty: The Role Of Microbes In A Changing Climate appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.[#item_full_content]

By Emily Jack-Scott, Program Director at Aspen Global Change Institute.

Global leaders met in Davos earlier in January to engage in cross-cutting discussions about the world’s most pressing challenges and to debate the merits of various solutions. After another year of climate extremes, it’s little surprise that abnormal weather and climate change are a central focus of the summit. 

Structural change through policies and governance is necessary to solve the climate crisis at the speed and scale required. But high level decision-makers are not the only ones with the power to reduce emissions. The choices that we all make every day as individuals are also critical. 

But often, we feel at a loss when it comes to taking individual action. What can I do? What difference can I possibly make? Recent research sheds light on the common barriers we face when making choices that can reduce carbon emissions and the many ways one person really can make a difference. 

A disconnect between concern and action

Over 70 percent of Americans describe themselves as cautious, concerned, or alarmed about climate change. But many people experience a disconnect between their individual worries and their confidence to take action. A recent analysis led by Carl Latkin in the Journal of Prevention details the most common barriers that concerned Americans report when it comes to walking the talk of climate activism. 

Even when survey respondents described climate change as very or extremely important to them, less than a third reported signing petitions (32 percent), contacting elected officials (12 percent), and donating money to (30 percent) or volunteering with (9 percent) organizations working to reduce climate change. The only climate action that the majority (69 percent) of very concerned citizens reported was voting for candidates who support mitigation measures. 

Some top reasons people report for not taking action on climate change include not being asked (50 percent), not knowing how to get involved (50 percent), and viewing activities like letter writing as unappealing (50 percent). Less common reasons include not wanting to be asked to donate (40 percent), being too busy (39 percent), not being encouraged to act (38 percent), and feeling like what they are capable of doing won’t make a difference (31 percent). 

But the number one reason that the majority of concerned Americans gave for their lack of involvement was that they felt undertrained and that someone else could do it better (57 percent). 

What one person can do

A newly published review in the journal One Earth by authors Sam Hampton and Lorraine Whitmash beautifully illustrates the many direct and indirect ways we can each take climate action (Figure 1). Their holistic view encourages us to imagine what climate action can look like in our daily lives and can help us break through the feeling that “someone else can do this better than me.”

The authors break down climate action into six categories: food, energy in the home, transport, shopping, influence, and citizenship. We each have the power to make wise choices in each of these domains, though a combination of influences also shape our decisions, including our values, cultural norms, level of education, peer pressure, strength of our social networks, financial well-being, access to green infrastructure, and our freedom to engage in political action.

When it comes to our diets, for example, we may know that reducing or eliminating meat (especially red meat) will help reduce our emissions, but whether we choose a more plant-forward diet is heavily influenced by our cultural traditions, upbringing, and the availability of vegetarian options at nearby restaurants or friends and families’ houses.

Similarly, when it comes to changing our home energy consumption by investing in efficiency improvements or renewable sources, our income levels and access to information about tax incentives have a big influence on our choices.

But herein lies the real power of individual action. When we can make choices that reduce emissions and dare to talk about those choices, we not only directly reduce our emissions, but indirectly influence others.

But what difference does it make?

We each make choices every day that can reduce emissions, and some have a bigger impact than we may realize. Often the most impactful choices depend on our lifestyle. As more people choose to substitute white meat or seafood for red meat, switch to electrical vehicles and heat pumps, take public transportation, or shop for second-hand goods, our choices increasingly become a new norm.

And when we talk with people within and beyond our social circles about why we made those choices, they can become an influence in their own right. These casual climate conversations can help build  much-needed climate literacy because there is a stark disconnect for most people between actions they perceive as climate-friendly and what actually reduces significant emissions (Figure 2).

A 2021 Ipsos poll found that nearly 60 percent of respondents thought recycling was the most effective way to reduce emissions in high-income countries. In actuality, the emissions savings from avoiding one long distance flight or buying renewable energy is eight times greater than recycling. Very few respondents even realized that their dietary choices or decision whether to have children had any significant impact on their carbon footprint.

Our choices in the domains of food, home energy, transport, and shopping translate into the indirect power we wield through influencing friends, family, and neighbors. Normalizing direct actions that reduce emissions inspires our peers and catalyzes political momentum. And while not all of our actions have a direct economic impact, the ones that do send strong market signals to business leaders who will respond to meet demand.

We are not all socially inclined, financially able, or geographically positioned to adopt every climate action in Hampton and Whitmarsh’s diagram (Figure 1). But the direct and indirect impacts of any climate-friendly choices we are able to make have a huge ripple effect in the kinds of dialogues happening among our friends and peers, and among business and government leaders farther away.

Featured Research

Hampton, S. and Whitmarsh, L., 2023. Choices for climate action: A review of the multiple roles individuals play. One Earth, 6(9), pp.1157-1172.

Latkin, C., Dayton, L., Bonneau, H., Bhaktaram, A., Ross, J., Pugel, J. and Latshaw, M.W., 2023. Perceived barriers to climate change activism behaviors in the United States among individuals highly concerned about climate change. Journal of Prevention, 44(4), pp.389-407.

The post What Difference Can I Make In The Climate Crisis? appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

By Emily Jack-Scott, Program Director at Aspen Global Change Institute. Global leaders met in Davos earlier in January to engage in cross-cutting discussions about the world’s most pressing challenges and to debate the merits of various solutions. After another year…
The post What Difference Can I Make In The Climate Crisis? appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.[#item_full_content]

This post is the fourth in a series titled “Real Talk on Reliability,” which will examine the reliability needs of our grid as we move toward 100 percent clean electricity and electrify more end-uses on the path to a climate stable future. It was written by Savannah M. D’Evelyn, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington’s Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center. Other posts in this series covered Rethinking the Reliability of the Grid and the Future of Operational Grid Reliability, and the EPA’s proposed rules on greenhouse gas emissions.

As climate change accelerates, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as megafires and heatwaves are on the rise. These extremes compromise not only our air quality, but often how a community is able to adapt to such events.

Air quality monitoring networks play a crucial role in enhancing climate resilience by providing communities and policymakers the data they need to understand the relationships between air quality and public health. For instance, public health organizations rely on accurate air quality data to decide when to recommend opening windows at nighttime during a heat event, or conversely, when to keep doors and windows closed to maintain clean air during a wildfire smoke event.

Data must be localized, accurate, continuous, and accessible in these situations to enable early detection of air quality changes and timely responses that can mitigate health risks. Communities across the U.S. are demonstrating more interest in involvement in air quality monitoring efforts to supplement federal and state data and bolster local climate resilience to extremes.

Who is responsible for measuring air quality in the U.S.?

The Clean Air Act (CAA) requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for six common air pollutants: particulate matter (PM), ozone, lead, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Monitoring these pollutants provides a basis for assessing and regulating air quality, guiding efforts to safeguard public health and the environment. State, tribal, and local air agencies work together to monitor and attain the standards and record extensive data in emissions inventories.

While NAAQS are federally set, individual states are responsible for meeting and maintaining the standards through state implementation plans. Even though the NAAQS and emissions inventories are intentionally set to protect human health on a local scale, public knowledge and understanding of the consequences of exposure air pollution on health and wellbeing is limited (Ramirez et al., 2019; D’Evelyn et al., in press). This knowledge is essential, though, to making daily health decisions and strengthening community climate resilience.

Air quality levels are communicated to the public through the Air Quality Index (AQI). The AQI is a numerical scale that gives an easy read of air quality with colors and corresponding categories ranging from “Good” to “Hazardous,” along with health recommendations to help inform decision making (Figure 1). While many people access air quality information on mobile phone weather apps, AQI information for specific locations can also be found at AirNow.gov, which pools data reported from federal and state-run monitors. If there is not an EPA-regulated air monitor in a specific area, the air quality of the nearest location will be displayed. The EPA’s fire and smoke map is also available on the AirNow site during wildfire season. This map includes additional monitoring sites, information on fire location, and smoke predictions per region.

The EPA evaluates all monitors used to assess compliance with the NAAQS as either Federal Reference Method (FRM) or Federal Equivalent Method (FEM) monitors. While FRM and FEM monitors are considered the gold standard, they are often expensive and not accessible to communities that may want more hyper-localized air quality information.

How can communities be more active in air quality monitoring and responses?

In recent years, affordable and easily used monitors have entered the market. Anyone can purchase these monitors, which are often accompanied by online platforms where all data can be publicly viewed. Some communities have turned to these low-cost sensors to build their own local air quality monitoring networks. Along with filling data gaps in federal and state monitoring, local monitoring networks empower communities to own their localized data, foster awareness around air quality and environmental health, and improve worker protections.

A new team in the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s (CDPHE) Air Pollution Control Division has a specific focus on community monitoring. As Amber Eglund from CDPHE’s Education and Community Opportunities team states, “Community air monitoring allows communities to play an active role in identifying, assessing, and understanding the levels of various pollutants in their air. It raises awareness of potential health risks and empowers communities to make informed decisions about their health, advocate for policy change and cleaner technologies, and foster an overall healthier environment.”

Access to additional localized data has proven most beneficial in regions where the monitors are deployed as part of a cohesive network. In the Methow Valley in northcentral Washington, for example, the community organization Clean Air Methow and the University of Washington worked together to identify clean air ambassadors who placed monitors in their homes and actively shared data with the community (Durkin et al., 2020).

In Imperial Valley, California, the community-run IVAN (Identifying Violations Affecting Neighborhoods) network enabled residents to sign up for localized air quality alerts and local public health organizations to tailor more timely and specific educational outreach to neighborhoods experiencing the worst air quality (English et al., 2020). After successful implementation in Imperial, the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) worked with six additional communities to host local IVAN networks across the state.

Unfortunately, increased access to low-cost sensors has not been equally successful or beneficial to all communities. Researchers have found that across the U.S., PurpleAir sensors tend to be deployed in census tracks that are significantly Whiter and higher-income relative to the national average (deSouza & Kinney, 2021). In California’s Los Angeles County, PurpleAir sensor coverage was shown to be significantly lower in communities with higher Black and Latinx populations (Mullen et al., 2022). As these studies demonstrate, community deployment of monitors without an equity strategy can exacerbate environmental injustices.

In 2022, the U.S. EPA put out a funding call for community organizations and local governments to measure air quality and improve community environmental literacy (EPA, 2022). Across 37 states, 132 projects in environmental justice communities ultimately received $53.4 million to address monitoring disparities.

Air quality monitoring for education and enforcement

Another way communities are getting engaged in local air quality monitoring is through schools, where youth are engaged to think more about air quality, environmental health, and climate change. Schools in Yakima County, Washington, were heavily impacted by wildfire smoke through the summer of 2023 and into the start of the school year.

As a result, University of Washington researchers partnered with local high schools to set up school-based monitoring networks and co-develop a cohesive curriculum to engage student thinking about air quality (Stampfer et al., 2022). They found that hands-on access to monitors and data were key to learning. They also found that engagement with local air quality specialists helped students connect what they were learning to the broader implications for their community, such as the need to address the health impacts of air pollution for outdoor workers, the elderly, and other vulnerable populations.

Similarly, Denver, Colorado’s Love My Air program across the Denver Public School District is working “to reduce air pollution and limit exposure through behavior change, advocacy, and community involvement.” The program has placed air quality monitors at over 30 different schools and provided both curricular materials for students and professional development opportunities for teachers and school nurses to become more involved in reducing student and community exposure to air pollution across the city.

Along with children, outdoor workers are particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of increased air pollution from climate change. Model results published by Marlier et al. (2021) predict that agricultural workers will have a 35 percent increase in wildfire smoke exposure days across California by mid-century. The researchers also determined “that existing monitoring networks do not provide adequate sampling” of particulate pollution to effectively protect worker health.

In California, air quality guidelines require employers to lower worker exposures when the AQI is above 150, but do not specify where to acquire the AQI data—a notable omission, given that several agricultural counties do not monitor air quality at all. Increased access to localized air quality data could significantly improve outdoor worker protections from smoke and other air pollution sources.

The big picture

As climate change accelerates and extreme weather events affect more people each year, accurate air quality monitoring networks can help combat these impacts. Local community groups can bolster the networks of federal- and state-coordinated monitoring networks, and engage in crucial community decision-making and improve rapid response to air quality events, public health advocacy, education, and social cohesion.

The post Air Quality Monitoring Networks Support More Climate-Resilient Communities appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

This post is the fourth in a series titled “Real Talk on Reliability,” which will examine the reliability needs of our grid as we move toward 100 percent clean electricity and electrify more end-uses on the path to a climate…
The post Air Quality Monitoring Networks Support More Climate-Resilient Communities appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.[#item_full_content]

By Emilio Jack-Scott and Liz Carver

Winter is coming, and people across the country have started turning on their heat to take the edge off the cold. With clear memories of last winter’s high heating costs and this season’s prices predicted to remain at near-record levels, many are resisting as long as possible before finally flipping the switch on their thermostats.

The impacts on both psychological and physical health and the economic toll of insufficient heat in winter is staggering and leaves an intergenerational wake. Household members, especially children and the elderly, suffer more from poor health (including an uptick in respiratory illnesses), have higher rates of anxiety and depression, and incur more trips to the hospital. Children are more likely to exhibit rule-breaking behaviors, such as skipping school. Physical and financial stress compound, and domestic disturbances and abuse rise. And the most extreme cases of energy insecurity result in injury or death due to unsafe temperatures or from using ovens or stoves as primary or secondary heat sources.

The energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy presents a critical opportunity to rectify this energy injustice. But to realize that potential, recent research calls upon policymakers to pay attention to important gaps in the ways heating energy burden and poverty are measured, and how policy prescriptions can be designed and implemented to address energy burden inequities, lest they inadvertently exacerbate energy insecurity in the transition.

Who is impacted by home energy poverty?

An uptick in research over the last decade has confirmed what many households have known for decades: low-income households pay a much higher percentage of their income on heating costs than higher-income households.

The energy burden of heating and cooling is often based on the percentage of a household’s income spent on energy. Many assistance programs categorize energy burdens as low (<6 percent income), high (>6 percent), and severe (>10 percent), as defined by a 2020 report published by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). According to the report, 12 percent of the U.S. population spent between 6 and 10 percent of their income on energy, and a whopping 13 percent of the population spent more than 10 percent of their income on energy (which constitutes a “severe energy burden”)—that’s nearly 16 million people in this the U.S. paying over a tenth of their limited income on energy costs.

The report also illustrates the disproportionate distribution of energy burden by income level, race and ethnicity, age, and housing type. Inequities in energy burden are shouldered by low-income households (even more pronounced among low-income seniors and those with disabilities); Native American, Black, and Hispanic households; renters; and low-income multifamily housing units and manufactured homes (both of which have notoriously poor weatherization) (Figure 2).

Historical policies and social context strongly influence today’s distribution of energy poverty. Redlining policies that limited mortgages for communities of color, especially Black Americans, have a lasting legacy evidenced in today’s heating inequities. In a 2022 paper in Energy Research and Social Science led by Benjamin Goldstein, the authors examined household energy usage intensity and carbon emissions against household race and historical policies.

They found that energy use intensity is significantly higher in historically redlined districts, which are still predominantly African American neighborhoods. African Americans are also more likely to be renters than homeowners and are more likely to be in energy-inefficient housing. There have been very few incentives for landlords to invest in efficiency or weatherization programs, since the utility cost for heating and cooling is usually the responsibility of renters (what is frequently referred to as the “split-incentive” problem).

How energy poverty is measured

So how can we ensure the accountability of policies and programs aimed at reducing energy poverty and addressing these inequities?

Another recent paper published in Energy Policy, led by author Luling Huang, points to the critical need to more accurately quantify levels of energy poverty. Traditional approaches to assessing energy poverty have largely fallen into two buckets: 1) asking consumers to self-assess the financial burden of heating and cooling their homes, or 2) using indicators or proxies such as how much energy is consumed, how much consumers spend on energy, building energy efficiency, and household income.

But as Huang’s findings confirm, both of these approaches fail to adequately capture the extent to which households limit their heating energy usage in order to reduce costs. Huang and colleagues measured heating and cooling usage in direct response to temperature changes, and analyzed consumption patterns against census income data to assess inequities. They found that a significant percentage of households exhibited dangerous levels of “energy limiting behavior” each year, but were not being captured by traditional metrics.

Huang and colleagues found low-income households frequently turn on heating units earlier in the winter than their higher-income counterparts (Figure 3). While this may seem counter to the assumption that low-income households are more apt to limit their heating due to financial constraints, the authors point to the substandard insulation and efficiency of many affordable housing options, which necessitate earlier and longer winter heating periods, as the likely cause.

Despite the poor building efficiency of many low-income homes, consumers actually use significantly less energy per square foot throughout the heating season compared to high-income homes, which consume 52 percent more heat per square foot annually. Furthermore (and despite significant energy-limiting behaviors), low-income households consistently end up shouldering “high” and “severe” energy burdens (spending between 6 percent and 10 percent, or more than 10 percent, of their income on energy, respectively) throughout the heating season (Figure 4).

In Figure 4, the “heating balance point” on the x-axis indicates the outdoor temperature at which households were compelled to turn on heating units throughout winter. Note the significant number of households (each dot) that have heating units on when the outside temperature is in the 30s and 40s, but are consuming very little electricity (y-axis). When a household is in this situation, they are clearly rationing heating electricity and suffering the psychological, health, and socio-economic impacts of insufficient heating.

Huang and colleagues calculated the percentage of the study households living in these conditions totaled a whopping 24 percent of the study population, the majority of whom would not have been captured by traditional energy burden metrics. Because these households had so severely limited their electricity consumption, their costs wouldn’t have exceeded the traditional threshold of “low energy burden” (less than 6 percent income spent on energy).

What are U.S. policymakers doing to try to reduce energy poverty in the transition to renewable energy?

These nuances in who endures energy poverty and how that burden is tracked are critical for improving existing policies and creating new policies that seek to reduce both energy insecurity and carbon emissions.

For instance, both Huang and Goldstein spotlight hidden energy burdens, which could be used to broaden eligibility requirements for existing assistance programs like the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), or the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). LIHEAP is a federal- and state-funded effort to provide assistance for home energy bills, and WAP can provide whole-house weatherization resources for low-income households, but eligibility for both is currently based on income level. The same is true for many state-funded energy assistance programs.

Huang and colleagues encourage policymakers to go beyond using household income as the only eligibility criteria for assistance programs, since this can result in the oversight of compounding factors of housing type, race, and the nuances of financial stress, regardless of income. Huang suggests installing and using smart meters to properly monitor heating burden and insecurity within households. Energy assistance programs can then receive alerts when energy limiting behaviors reach levels of concern, and better tailor their support to vulnerable households.

The landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 includes $391 billion for a variety of programs, incentives, and tax credits to accelerate a clean energy transition, decarbonize the economy, and mitigate climate change. Several of these programs can help reduce energy poverty by making energy-efficient home upgrades and renewable energy adoption more accessible to low- and middle-income families.

As Goldstein and colleagues underscore in their paper, one of the biggest barriers for the communities most affected by energy insecurity is limited availability of upfront capital to invest in energy-saving upgrades or renewable installations, and insufficient tax liability to benefit from tax credit incentives. Policies that decrease upfront costs through direct consumer incentives, such as instant rebates, are especially helpful.

In response to this need, the IRA allocated nearly $9 billion for states and Tribes to design and implement two Home Energy Rebate Programs to accelerate the adoption of residential energy efficiency and renewable energy systems. The Home Efficiency Rebates program provides instant rebates to homeowners and landlords of single- and multi-family homes for performance-based, whole-home energy efficiency and electrification upgrades, without income restrictions.

The Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates program provides direct rebates of up to 100 percent to help low- and middle-income households purchase and install energy-efficient electric appliances, such as heat pumps, water heaters, and stoves. Huang and colleagues specifically point to the IRA’s rebate programs as “a major step forward to help households (especially low-to-middle-income households) to improve energy efficiency at home.”

Beyond the direct rebate programs, the IRA allocates $3 billion for Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants, which can be used to fund community-led projects in historically underserved communities, including initiatives to reduce energy costs through renewable energy or energy efficiency. Another IRA program provides $1 billion in funding to increase energy efficiency in affordable housing.

As these new programs are rolled out, it is critically important to ensure that they truly benefit energy insecure households. Policymakers at the metro, state, and federal levels will need to hold landlords accountable to make sure that subsidized energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements don’t result in “renovictions,” as energy upgrade costs are passed along to renters, making rents unaffordable. Goldstein points to possible solutions, such as allowing tenants (and landlords) to pay for retrofits through monthly utility payments (as long as energy savings outweigh improvement costs), or providing compensation to landlords dependent on renewal of leases with prior tenants at comparable rates when renovations have been completed.

Energy burden, insecurity measurements of household income spent on energy expenses, and energy limiting behaviors must also be closely monitored to ensure that weatherization, efficiency, and renewable energy projects effectively reduce energy insecurity for vulnerable communities.

Goldstein et al. and Huang et al. both point to the need to expand investment at the federal and state levels to mitigate the impacts and drivers of energy poverty. In addition to assistance programs, Huang and colleagues point to the need for general investment in infrastructure and jobs to address the root of inequitable energy burdens and improve everyday living conditions.

Featured research:

Drehobl, A., Ross, L. and Ayala, R., 2020. How high are household energy burdens. An Assessment of National and Metropolitan Energy Burdens across the US.

Goldstein, B., Reames, T.G. and Newell, J.P., 2022. Racial inequity in household energy efficiency and carbon emissions in the United States: An emissions paradox. Energy Research & Social Science, 84, p.102365.

Huang, L., Nock, D., Cong, S. and Qiu, Y.L., 2023. Inequalities across cooling and heating in households: Energy equity gaps. Energy Policy, 182, p.113748.

The post Living In The Cold: Addressing The Inequalities Of Heating Energy Poverty In Winter appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

By Emilio Jack-Scott and Liz Carver Winter is coming, and people across the country have started turning on their heat to take the edge off the cold. With clear memories of last winter’s high heating costs and this season’s prices…
The post Living In The Cold: Addressing The Inequalities Of Heating Energy Poverty In Winter appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.[#item_full_content]