By Jessica Goodheart for Capital and Main.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Capital and Main-Public News Service Collaboration
When Chevrolet debuted the Volt, a plug-in hybrid, back in 2011, Brett Beard began installing chargers in the homes of Southern California's electric vehicle early adopters. It was a niche group. "We were in movie stars' garages," remembers Beard.
Now the state is expected to need more than 1.2 million chargers by 2030 to meet the fueling demands of the 7.5 million electric vehicles anticipated to be on California roads, according to the California Energy Commission. The work of building out California's EV charging infrastructure has become essential to meeting the state's climate goals and to alleviating the "range anxiety" of a broader public traversing the state in their battery-powered cars.
The hundreds of millions of state and federal dollars budgeted to create that infrastructure also represent jobs for the union electricians at Beard's Santa Fe Springs contracting company, as well as thousands of electrical workers across the state. In the next eight years, according to one estimate, 2,609 California electrical workers, or 6.8% of the existing electrical workforce, will be employed in installing EV chargers.
With this sudden boost in spending, labor and environmental advocates have been working to pair public investment in EV infrastructure with training standards as a way to ensure the quality of the work and high road jobs. Assembly Bill 841, sponsored by California Assemblyman Phil Ting in 2020, requires at least a quarter of certified electricians on publicly funded or authorized projects to have participated in an 18-hour course, known as the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program (EVITP). The skills requirement represents a broader effort by labor advocates to attach credentialing standards to jobs related to climate investment.
Beard took part in the early version of EVITP back in 2012. It was invaluable instruction at a time when the technology was little understood by his colleagues. "Electricians have pickup trucks," he points out. "They don't have electric vehicles."
Beard has since taken the class several times more as the technology has evolved. He and other supporters of the requirement say it is necessary to ensure that vehicle charging is both safe and reliable. Beard is watching the move to electrify heavy-duty trucks and school buses, as well as the development of "bidirectional" charging that allows car batteries to send electricity back to the grid. Charging stations with as many as 20 dispensers all powered by one large charger are on the horizon. "So you're talking about a huge voltage," similar to a battery storage system, says Beard. As increasing power demands are placed on the charging infrastructure, "Having the EVITP is going to save lives," he adds.
The requirement that at least a quarter of electricians on publicly funded jobs take an online class at a cost of $275 may seem like an uncontroversial proposition. But not everyone is enthusiastic. The Electric Vehicle Charging Association (EVCA), an industry group that represents companies like ChargePoint, initially opposed the requirement before withdrawing its opposition in 2020. Reed Addis, manager of EVCA, says his members remain "cranky" about the obligation placed on them. "We don't know of shoddy electrical work or shoddy installation work that would require this. So from our perspective, it was like, where's the impetus for this policy?"
The EVITP was launched in 2012 after a series of reports of electric cars catching fire. Some of those fires originated in the vehicle, but others started in the electrical systems of the buildings where cars were charging, leading to a recognition by the auto manufacturers that the electricians who were installing charging stations needed better training, according to Bernie Kotlier, national co-chair of EVITP. Based in Michigan, the nonprofit that runs the training program is guided by electrical contractors, electricians, first responders, utilities, electric vehicle makers, EV charging manufacturers and others.
Kotlier says there is no central repository of code violations, electrocutions, fires or deaths related to installation errors. Still, over the years, there have been scattered press reports of fires that have broken out while cars were charging that have not been battery-related.
In 2020, a child suffered minor injuries after a fire erupted in a Cerritos, California, garage where a Tesla was charging; it was thought to be related to the home's aluminum wiring. In 2019, a fire erupted in San Antonio, Texas, due to an overloaded electrical system. Such press reports about fires connected to electrical vehicles, however rare, also set back the industry, says Kotlier, who is also an executive director on the Labor Management Cooperation Committee of IBEW and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) California & Nevada. He says there are 2,300 EVITP-certified electricians across California, already enough to meet the state's infrastructure goals.
The EVITP program is supported by the 750,000-member International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, though it is not a union program. Kotlier is keen to point out that participants need only be state-certified electricians to be eligible for an EVITP certification. There are other pathways to become certified besides the union's apprenticeship programs.
Yet some supporters see the EVITP requirement as a way to maintain job quality standards at a time when the move away from fossil fuels could cost middle-class jobs at refineries, power plants and in the auto industry. The goal should be to show "that the clean economy is better than the dirty economy that we have," said Marc Boom, director of federal affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "That transition is not going to be complete until there are good, high-quality jobs that come along with it."
The national environmental group joined the electricians' union in February in urging Congress to include an EVITP certification requirement in the Build Back Better Act. The Biden administration is recommending the program as a way to ensure "safe and high quality" workmanship under the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is expected to fund 500,000 EV charging stations nationwide at a cost of $7.5 billion.
Carol Zabin, an economist with the UC Berkeley Labor Center's Green Economy Program, explains it this way. The EVITP program is "basically building on the state-certified apprenticeship system," an earn-while-you-learn workforce training system that combines classroom training with years of on-the-job training. "Certification can really support good wages, and it does identify skills that help employers know what they're hiring," says Zabin.
But EVCA's Addis sees the EVITP requirement as "elitist" and costly at a time when the industry is trying to make electric cars as affordable as possible. "Because they've picked this particular program, given it a monopoly, you're not going to see as many people of color being able to participate and get that type of training," says Addis, who complained the test is hard to access for those in rural areas.
There is no data available about the demographics of EVITP-certified electricians in California, according to the California Energy Commission. The CEC has recently partnered with California community colleges to offer EVITP exams in rural areas of the state. Previously, the test was offered only in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
Diana Limon, dressed in a pale gray suit, is businesslike and direct. She's the training director for the largest school for electricians in the nation: the Electrical Training Institute of Southern California (ETI) in Commerce, California. The facility is jointly run by NECA and IBEW Local 11, whose jurisdiction covers auto-centric L.A. County. (Note: IBEW Local 11 is a financial supporter of this website.) The apprentices at ETI look a lot like the county, except there are more Latinos and fewer whites and Asian and Pacific Islanders. The current class of about 1,900 is 69% Latino, 9% Black, 4% Asian and Pacific Islander and 17% white. About 125 IBEW apprentices completed the EVITP program last year. They will receive their EVITP credential once the state fully certifies them as electricians.
"I think for us it's always about raising the standards," Limon says of EVITP. "When we do something wrong, people can be shocked, they can be electrocuted, or somebody else can be injured as a result of that, or there could be fire. So public safety is important to us and the safety of our members is important to us."
The Electrical Training Institute is located in the solar and battery-powered building where Frank de Leon apprenticed as an electrician beginning in 2004. He said he first learned about the possibility of becoming an electrician through the union's 2nd Call program, which sends members into the prisons to do outreach. "The union electrician job was like a dream come true for me," says de Leon, who thinks his basic math and interview skills helped him land the apprenticeship.
Now he's an EVITP-certified foreman with a union electrical contractor that specializes in EV charging. He says he will soon be installing 40 chargers at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Riverside County, where he was confined for 25 months in the late 1990s.
Jessica Goodheart wrote this article for Capital and Main.
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A New York bill aims to regulate the fashion industry's effects on climate change.
The Fashion Act would hold clothing and footwear companies accountable for their effects on the environment.
Fashion accounts for up to around 9% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, more than the aviation industry. The bill also creates a remediation fund for environmental, community or labor-related projects.
Rich Schrader, northeast government affairs director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, described how enforcement of the bill would work.
"The bill will create an enforcement mechanism that the attorney general in New York State will be responsible for," Schrader explained. "It's given a monitoring investigative and enforcement set of authorities. That's to ensure the companies are in compliance."
He pointed out the attorney general could fine companies not in compliance with the guidelines.
Fast fashion companies like Shein have only made things worse, studies have shown. The companies make clothes designed to be worn less than a handful of times before they're tossed away, ending up in a landfill. Fast fashion is responsible for around 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions. The bill has been referred to the Assembly's Consumer Affairs and Protection Committee.
A United Nations report found more than one-quarter of signatories to the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action are working with lawmakers on climate-related issues and regulations.
Maxine Bédat, executive director of the New Standard Institute, said issues persist in greening the process of making clothes.
"The textile mills, which are the ones that would be responsible for decarbonizing, are not getting any price premiums from the brands that they work with to decarbonize," Bédat noted. "There is zero incentive for them to decarbonize even though the technologies are there."
She argued more collaboration is needed between brands and manufacturers to develop an incentive structure. Bédat sees the New York bill as the foundation to build on, which a federal bill could do. The FABRIC Act would establish safer working conditions for garment workers and improve industrywide sustainability.
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By Jack McGovan for Sentient Climate.
Broadcast version by Edwin J. Viera for New York News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration
When Guherbar Gorgulu arrived to study at Erasmus University Rotterdam, she was surprised by the many plant-based options.
"In Turkey, you don't really have a lot of vegan options," she says, not to mention many people interested in talking about the impact of what they eat. "I really didn't have a community of people who also cared about animal rights and the environment."
That all changed when Gorgulu started attending weekly vegan cooking workshops hosted by the Erasmus Sustainability Hub - a student-led organization encouraging students to lead more sustainable lifestyles. Inspired to join the Hub as Food and Agriculture Manager, Gorgulu, along with her colleagues, have been active in fighting for climate action on campus. Initiatives include workshops, discussions and petitions to demand fully plant-based cafeterias.
The work seems to be paying off. In February, the university announced that they are aiming to make plant-based foods the norm on campus by 2030. The goal is part of the university's climate commitments; animal agriculture is responsible for around 20 percent of global emissions, and is also a leading cause of habitat loss.
Change is happening beyond Rotterdam. A dozen universities across the U.S. joined an incubator program this year to provide more plant-based foods on their campuses, and across the UK, student unions in Cambridge, Stirling, Birmingham and London voted in support of vegan menus this academic year. In 2021, universities across the entire city of Berlin went predominantly meat-free.
Rising Demand for Plant-Based Foods at Universities
It's no surprise to see rising plant-based initiatives on campus, says Emma Garnett, PhD, a researcher focusing on strategies for promoting more sustainable diets at the University of Oxford. "Students often form the backbone of many climate campaigns," she says. The Fridays for Future school strikes began in 2018, and many of those students are now at university.
In 2021, Nathan McGovern helped launch the Plant-Based Universities Campaign, which aims to push universities to serve 100 percent plant-based foods on campus.
McGovern is now a spokesperson for Animal Rising, previously Animal Rebellion UK, a group working on mobilizing student action on campuses.
"Our strategy is to pass motions through student unions," says McGovern, which become a mandate from the unions to the university itself. "This gives us a platform for negotiation." The four successful student union votes in the U.K. were part of this campaign - with the group eyeing 36 more universities for future efforts.
Garnett also highlights research which suggests that a big life change - such as moving to university - can an increased willingness to adopt green behaviors. Representatives from the student organization in Berlin, Studierendenwerk, attribute their decision to rising demand for vegan meals on campus. There, 16.5 percent of students identify as vegan, in comparison to an average of 1.6 percent across the rest of Germany.
Universities Hoping to Meet Climate Commitments
A growing number of universities are now committing to reduce their emissions by serving more plant-based foods on campus, says Edwina Hughes, Head of the Cool Food Pledge at the World Resources Institute (WRI).
Universities make up roughly a fifth of the 67 organizations who have taken the Cool Food Pledge run by WRI. The rest include hospitals, hotels and cities like New York, whose mayor has promised to reduce 30 percent of food-related emissions by the end of the decade.
Cities and schools that sign on must aim to reduce their food-related emissions by at least 25 percent by 2030 - a rate calculated by WRI to fall in line with Paris climate targets. The first 30 organizations who took the pledge have already successfully reduced their per-plate emissions by 21 percent, according to the organization's data.
The Cool Food Pledge team begins their work by looking at each organization's procurement data, and then calculating their carbon footprint. They measure this with the direct emissions of the food purchased, as well as the carbon opportunity cost - an amount based on how much carbon the land could store if it had been left alone as forest or other wild landscape.
What becomes clear, says Hughes, is that in order to drive down the climate impact of food, "it's really important to move away from climate impactful foods like ruminant meat and all animal based products towards plants."
Using Behavioral Science to Promote Plant-Based
Each organization also receives behavioral science recommendations to help them encourage diners to select plant-based options. Such small interventions - known as nudges - can be effective in university settings.
One meta-analysis spanning 21 years and 24 universities across different continents found that over two-thirds of nudges were successful in reducing meat consumption. The analysis also found that multiple complementary nudges were more effective than singular interventions. Nudges can take many forms - like adding more meal options, promotional messaging, pricing incentives, manipulating the layout of dining areas and changing the arrangement of food choices on menus.
Even in the classroom there are opportunities to promote plant-based eating. Economics students at a U.S. college reduced their meat consumption by roughly 10 percent over a three year period hearing a 50 minute informational campaign that talked about the environmental impacts of animal agriculture, combined with information on the health benefits of reducing meat consumption.
The intervention wasn't coercive, says Andrew Jalil, an associate professor in economics at Occidental College, Los Angeles, and lead author of the study. "It was just saying, here's what the scientific literature says, you do what you want to do."
Jalil highlights similar research in which students in a philosophy class were exposed to material arguing for vegetarianism. Based on student cafeteria purchases, this too translated to a reduction in meat consumption. With roughly half of all young people going to university, at least in the U.K., universities are an ideal institution for disseminating information to a range of people from different backgrounds.
Jalil points out there might be other factors influencing students to be more open to dietary shifts. They attend university to learn, they might be more concerned about the climate crisis due to their age and access to dining facilities removes any cooking barriers that might exist to trying out vegan foods.
Universities Still Face Challenges to Climate Action
Shifting what an entire university eats isn't easy. Many schools, Hughes says, are decentralized in the way they provide food, with different colleges offering their own menus. The logistics of reduction can be complicated.
What's more, Hughes adds, it would be naive not to think that "there are universities and faculties who are quite opposed to doing this kind of work because it comes into conflict with their ethos or with their research." Many universities, for example, have research centers focusing on livestock production.
Plus, as the Cool Food Pledge is voluntary, there's no guarantee that anyone will stick to it, and the same is true of any claims made in a press release separate from the pledge.
"It's their responsibility if they want to make progress," says Hughes, adding that she sees students, faculty and investors as the "informal police," who should act to put pressure on their universities if they fumble their targets. The WRI doesn't publish any data on individual organizations, which Hughes says universities could do in order to hold themselves accountable.
"Ultimately what you want is data - you want to be able to track progress," she says. "It's not very interesting to a lot of people but it is the material way to see whether anything is changing."
Even if these schools were accountable and making strides to reduce their food emissions, they might be hogging the limelight in a way that obscures trends elsewhere in society. In the case of the Cool Food Pledge, only a fraction of the organizations who've taken it are universities.
"We should bear in mind that universities often receive a lot of press interest, so we could be missing similar initiatives at other organizations due to less publicity," says Garnett.
In April, the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, made a commitment to reduce food emissions in the city by 33 percent by 2030, in part by serving less meat at schools and hospitals. Other councils, such as Cambridge City and Oxfordshire County, have made similar commitments to only serve plant-based foods at events and meetings, and push for more vegan options in schools. Last year, Ingka Group, responsible for a majority of IKEA stores, began selling plant-based foods at the same price or cheaper than meat options in their restaurants.
But for some activists, the publicity that universities attract is exactly why they should be targets for climate action.
"A lot of universities, by continuing to serve animal products on their menus, are giving legitimacy to an industry that has none," says McGovern. "These are the places we're referencing when we talk about the need to move to a plant-based food system, and they really need to be aligning their actions and their menus with that."
Jack McGovan wrote this article for Sentient Climate.
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As Coloradans begin to weigh their options in this year's presidential election, a new Carbon Brief analysis projects that a second Biden term would help reduce climate pollution - but the administration will still fall short of meeting its 2030 goals.
Report co-author Simon Evans - senior policy editor at Carbon Brief - said by contrast, a second Trump term that successfully rolls back Biden initiatives, including the Inflation Reduction Act as promised, would add four billion extra tons of fossil fuel pollution.
"That's equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the European Union and Japan," said Evans. "That amount of extra emissions, four billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, would cause global climate damage worth something like $900 billion."
Trump has repeatedly claimed that climate change is a hoax, and advanced policies that increased crude oil drilling in order to maintain American energy dominance.
Researchers project a second Trump term would wipe out all emission-reduction gains made over the past five years by installing wind turbines, solar panels, and other clean energy technologies across the globe twice over.
In the 20th century, Evans said nations controlling large fossil fuel reserves did hold significant economic and other advantages.
But in the 21st century and beyond, he said he believes countries with large portfolios of clean energy will have the advantage.
"Actually, clean energy technologies are a great way of bringing energy security," said Evans. "Because you're not relying on import, you're just relying on the wind and the sun that you have in your own country. And the U.S. is certainly very well endowed with wind and solar resources."
Four billion tons is also equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the world's 140 countries with the smallest carbon footprints.
Evans noted that people who can't afford air conditioning to survive extreme heat, or move away from areas prone to flooding and wildfire, will continue to face the biggest threats.
"The people around the world that are least responsible for climate change," said Evans, "whether that's in the poorest countries in the world, or the poorest people in the richest countries - those tend to be the people that are most exposed to the negative impacts of climate change."
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