Climate News

Community Choice Energy in the News

Greg Thole1 Comment

A recent Op/Ed in the Dorchester Reporter discussed Community Choice Energy as one of the best tools Boston has to fight climate change.

In October the City Council will take up a proposal for Community Choice Energy, which would add more renewable power to the electricity we use without raising our bills, and encourage the energy industry to build more solar and wind farms. Cities around Boston are doing it successfully and most members of the city council favors that program. Mayor Walsh should endorse it now. It’s the fastest, cheapest way to start us down a fossil-free road.

Read the full article here.

To help Community Choice Energy passed, we need people to show up to the hearing and pack the hall!

Say You’ll Be There

CCE in the JP Gazette

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The JP Gazette recently posted an Op/Ed piece explaining the case being made for Community Choice Energy in the Boston City Council.

It clearly explains the core mechanics of CCE and the goals of Councilors Wu and O’Malley.

With CCE, the City of Boston would get a higher portion of the fuel used for electricity in homes and small businesses from renewable sources like wind and solar, in addition to the 12 percent already in place. State law requires utilities to buy an increasing amount of renewable energy every year.

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Toward those goals, it is hoped that the City administration comes to the conclusion that adopting the CCE in a careful way will benefit all the people and businesses in Boston and figures out how to institute CCE as soon as possible. As the Carbon Free Boston report says, “It is important that this work starts now.”

Check out the Community Choice Energy page if you’d like to learn more and why people are getting excited it.

Trump’s Withdrawal from the Paris Accords

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President Trump announced last week his intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords.  This decision is misinformed and reckless.  It ignores the overwhelming evidence that the world is getting hotter every year, and gives up our role of global leadership.  Exiting the agreement aligns the U.S. with Syria and Nicaragua, the only other two countries in the world that did not commit to the Paris Accords.

Trump said “I was elected to represent the people of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”  It’s worthwhile to linger on the know-nothingness of this statement for a moment.  The people of Paris did not form the climate accords – world leaders did, gathered in Paris to represent the people of their nations.  Pittsburgh, like all U.S. cities, will face hotter summers, refugee crises, food shortages, and other terrible effects of climate change if it is not addressed.

The ignorance of this decision and rhetoric is palpable.

So – what do we do now?

State and Local Action

With continued inaction at the federal level, it’s clear that the responsibility of meeting the challenges of climate change falls to the state and local levels of government.  Several states have banded together to form the Climate Alliance, with the stated goal of acting to meet the Paris Accord carbon reductions without federal support.

Massachusetts has joined the Alliance, and Governor Baker and Mayor Walsh have issued statements rejecting Trump’s decision.

Now those statements need to turn into policy.  We have a long way to go to reduce our carbon footprint in Boston to meet our climate goals.  Energy efficiency, green jobs, and resiliency planning should all come to the forefront now.

One of the easiest wins for the City of Boston is to adopt Community Choice Energy.  It would cost the city nothing to implement, and we will accelerate our transition to renewable energy by adopting more of it for our residents and businesses.

What You Can Do

City Council is considering this approach now.

Call Mayor Walsh (617-635- 4500) to tell him that you support Community Choice Energy, and that you consider the environment an important election year issue.

Call your City Councilor to ask that they support the plan brought forth by Councilors Wu and O’Malley to adopt Community Choice to get more renewable energy for Boston.

If you’re dismayed by the short-sighted withdrawal from the Paris accords, then you can still do something to resist, fight back, and help preserve the environment.