Home / U.S. Climate Alliance Recommends Improvements to Administration’s Climate & Environmental Justice Screening Tool
Like the Biden-Harris administration, the U.S. Climate Alliance is committed to centering equity, environmental justice, and a just economic transition in our efforts to achieve our climate goals and create good community- and family-sustaining jobs. To meet this commitment, states are creating more participatory processes and practices across government, such as inclusive community engagement programs and equity screening tools.
Screening tools like the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) can help identify and eliminate existing disparities and expand economic diversification efforts to communities impacted by climate change. By relying on publicly-available, nationally-consistent data, CEJST establishes a new federal floor for tools that can ensure disproportionately at-risk populations obtain the financial, technical, and institutional resources they require.
However, we believe this tool can also be improved and strengthened and provided the following feedback.
Launched on June 1, 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by the previous administration’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the Alliance has grown to include governors from across the U.S. Governors in the Alliance have pledged to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025, at least 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030, and collectively achieve overall net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as practicable, and no later than 2050.
Alliance states and territories are achieving lower levels of air pollution, delivering more energy savings to homes and businesses, preparing more effectively for climate impacts, generating more electricity from zero-carbon sources, and collectively employing over 40% more workers in the clean energy sector than the rest of the country. For more information on Alliance members’ bipartisan, cross-sector climate action, see our Fact Sheet.
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