A Black think tank convenes a commission to focus on the disparate impact of climate change on minority communities and help involve historically Black institutions in clean energy projects.
For more than two decades, Dr. Warren M. Washington, one of the nation’s leading meteorologists, has been among the U.S. scientists that have studied and predicted the long-term impact greenhouse gas emissions are having on the earth’s climate. Long convinced that reducing climate change requires global action to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., has taken on speaking engagements and activities, such as joining the Commission to Engage African-Americans on Climate Change, to advocate on behalf of people living in economically and socially disadvantaged communities.
After working together for less than a year, Washington and other commission members this past spring shepherded a set of principles to help guide the protection of minorities and poor people and presented them to congressional leaders and staffers who have been working on comprehensive climate change and clean energy legislation currently under consideration by Congress, according to Washington.
Passed by the House of Representatives in late June as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the legislation, also known as the Waxman-Markey bill after sponsors Reps. Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, would establish a wide range of clean air emissions standards, clean energy job programs, and renewable energy technology development initiatives to facilitate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The Senate is considering climate change and clean energy legislation and is expected to approve such legislation this year.
“I think that in the Waxman-Markey bill that there was a very sincere effort on the part of Congress to take (low-income and minority community) concerns into account. It’s hard to say how much the commission has done versus other groups, but I think we can be a very effective body to have direct input into congressional leaders,” Washington said.
Launched formally in July 2008, the Commission to Engage African-Americans on Climate Change (CEAC) has sought to shape comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation but is also moving to help bring historically Black colleges and universities into national environmental and renewable energy projects being undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with clean renewable energy technologies. The commission has also undertaken a national public education and outreach campaign, which includes townhall meetings around the country, to educate and engage Blacks on climate change.
“The biggest thing we’ve done so far is getting these principles out (to Congress) and the second thing is having the town hall meetings and workshops,” Washington says. “I think there we can act as a group that listens to local people and fi nd out what’s really on their mind in terms of impacts of climate change.”
