In the spring of 2022, Duke Energy submitted a Carbon Plan to help North Carolina achieve goals laid out in recently enacted laws to curb climate change. The plan ostensibly aims to achieve the state's climate goals to curb carbon emissions.
Under this plan, however, low-wealth North Carolinians, who are disproportionately people of color, risk losing access to reliable, affordable electricity. Many may be left without the power needed to fuel their lives.
In response, the Center for Progressive Reform launched the Campaign for Energy Justice to ensure that North Carolina’s transition to a clean energy economy serves all North Carolinians, regardless of wealth or background. The campaign aims to address Duke Energy’s failure to prioritize both renewable energy and equity by reducing barriers to public participation. Ultimately, the campaign seeks to ensure that all North Carolinians have reliable access to affordable electricity as the state decarbonizes, including energy they generate on their own.
The campaign recently synthesized multiple reports analyzing Duke Energy’s Carbon Plan in a memo. The memo discusses conclusions from six reports produced by experts in issues related to equity, energy, and the environment (see Appendix A of the memo).
The memo aims to aid partners, allies, and community members as they draft and submit public comments about the plan and mount advocacy, legislative, and campaign efforts for a more equitable clean energy future.
A Deeply Flawed Plan
The memo finds that the Duke Energy Plan:
As summarized in the memo, Duke’s plan unnecessarily limits numerous low-cost, clean energy resources, including wind, solar battery storage, solar, and energy efficiency resources; ignores affordability concerns; and continues harmful emissions in communities.
The plan proposes to build new natural gas plants instead of adding more renewable energy resources to meet carbon reduction goals and keep up with energy demand. Building new gas, however, has outsized climate and health impacts from methane, which produces health-damaging air pollutants and ultimately increases respiratory illnesses in overburdened communities. Replacing coal with natural gas, then, is substituting one polluting resource with only a marginally better one.
Building new gas is also unnecessary for keeping up with consumer demand. Researchers found that energy efficiency resources lower total consumer demand for energy over time: The more energy efficient a home, the less energy is wasted and, consequently, used.
Investments in clean energy efficiency resources avoid the need for new natural gas and protect population and environmental health while saving customers and energy providers money. Adopting a clean energy plan grounded in energy efficiency will improve affordability, reduce air pollution, and reduce corresponding health impacts, especially among vulnerable populations.
The campaign opposes Duke Energy’s plan in its current iteration because it fails to equitably serve low-wealth people of color who disproportionately absorb the burden of high cost and highly polluting gas resources. Instead, the company should adopt a plan that relies more heavily on clean energy resources to more equitably serve low-wealth customers. To learn more about the campaign, please view our earlier post. You can learn how to submit public comments on Duke Energy’s plan here.
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Sophie Loeb | September 8, 2022
In the spring of 2022, Duke Energy submitted a Carbon Plan to help North Carolina achieve goals laid out in recently enacted laws to curb climate change. The plan ostensibly aims to achieve the state's climate goals to curb carbon emissions. Under this plan, however, low-wealth North Carolinians, who are disproportionately people of color, risk losing access to reliable, affordable electricity.
Clare Henry | September 7, 2022
From family farmers to biofuel investors, over 900 people and advocacy groups submitted comments on California’s draft plan for achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. In their comments, environmental advocates and justice groups expressed three major concerns with the state’s draft “scoping” plan. First, the plan fails to recognize the urgency of transitioning to a clean energy economy. Second, it relies too heavily on unproven technology. And third, it fails to specify concrete implementation measures.
David Hunter, Shade Streeter, William Snape, III | September 1, 2022
Our hemisphere’s shared natural heritage is threatened. The Convention on Nature Protection and Wild Life Preservation is a low-risk, high-reward pathway for the Biden administration to strengthen our strategic relationships in the hemisphere.
Grace DuBois | August 31, 2022
Climate change poses a serious threat to occupational health and safety. Workers — especially low-income workers and those who work outdoors — are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures and increasingly frequent extreme weather and other climate-related disasters.
Daniel Farber | August 19, 2022
Production and combustion of fossil fuels impose enormous costs on society, which the industry doesn't pay for. I want to talk about some options for using the tax system to change that.
Alexandra Rogan, James Goodwin | August 18, 2022
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will subsidize our nation's clean energy revolution and have a positive impact on climate-driven economics, as noted in Part I of this series. That said, the IRA isn't flawless. Notably, it includes several subsidies for fossil fuels, which will be counterproductive as our nation works toward its climate goals. Worse still, not all "carrots" for clean energy technologies are good, and the IRA includes a potentially bad one. Specifically, the IRA risks subsidizing the clean energy transition through perpetuating environmental injustice in how we obtain and use energy to fuel our economy.
Alexandra Rogan, James Goodwin | August 18, 2022
With the signature of President Joe Biden, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) now marks the most significant climate policy action the United States has ever taken. The defining feature of this law is that it seeks to wring carbon dioxide emissions out of the U.S. economy by relying heavily on policy "carrots," like subsidies, instead of policy "sticks," such as regulating the fossil fuel industry or attempting to capture the external costs of greenhouse gas emissions through carbon pricing.
James Goodwin | August 10, 2022
After more than 50 years, the Clean Air Act is due for an upgrade to account for changing circumstances. We can now recognize how the law is insufficiently attentive to the realities of structural racism and systemic disparities in environmental protections. Polluters have exacerbated these problems by weaponizing uncertainty to oppose stronger protections for those who need them most. In speaking to both challenges, the Public Health Air Quality Act would help ensure that the Clean Air Act is well positioned to continue serving the American people for the next 50 years.
Daniel Farber | August 8, 2022
What wetlands and waterbodies does the Clean Water Act protect? Congress failed to provide a clear answer when it passed the statute, and the issue has been a bone of contention ever since. The Biden administration is in the process of issuing a new regulation on the subject. Normally, you'd expect the Supreme Court to wait to jump in until then. Instead, the Court reached out to grab Sackett v. EPA, where landowners take a really extreme position on the subject. Not a good sign.