All Climate Events

Tuesday, September 19, 2023. 1:00 PM. Mandatory Emissions Reductions: Centering Environmental Justice in Climate Policy. Nicky Sheats, John S. Watson Institute for Urban Policy and Research; Ansha Zaman, Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy;  Melissa Miles, Nj Environmental Justice Alliance; Michele Roberts and Stephanie Herron, Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform. Sponsored by Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School. More information here. 

Abstract: Across the United States, fossil fuel infrastructure emits toxic air pollution and planet-warming greenhouse gases that drive climate change. Low-income communities and communities of color bear the brunt of both, living on the front lines of impacts from climate change as well as suffering the harms of localized co-pollutants, like particular matter and nitrous oxides, emitted by nearby facilities. A just and equitable climate mitigation policy for the power sector must make the elimination of the sector’s outsized impact on these environmental justice (EJ) communities an explicit goal. 

A new joint report by Dr. Nicky Sheats of the John S. Watson Institute for Urban Policy and Research (Kean University) and members of the Tishman Environment and Design Center, lays out a framework for a policy to require mandatory emissions reductions (MER) of power sector pollution in EJ communities, and applies it to three state case studies: New Jersey, Minnesota, and Delaware.