"Is Your Electric Utility Blocking Climate Action?" [1]
"According to a new report, the chances are high."
"American electric utilities often talk a good game when it comes to climate change. But many are working to keep the country hooked on fossil fuels.
A new report from the London-based think tank InfluenceMap finds that nearly half of the U.S.’s 25 largest investor-owned power utilities are working to delay the transition away from coal, oil, and gas — whether through direct lobbying at the state or federal level, public messaging, or their funding of campaigns and political parties. The report brands 11 of the 25 utilities as “laggards” and links many of them to the absence of strong climate legislation in their home states.
Kendra Haven, U.S. program director for InfluenceMap and one of the report’s authors, said that electric utilities’ actions are obstructing urgently needed progress toward the country’s climate targets. In 2019, power generation accounted for 25 percent of the U.S.’s climate pollution. Decarbonizing the sector “needs to happen to meet the U.S.’s contribution to the Paris Agreement,” Haven told Grist."