Advancing an Equitable Clean Future for Everyone in Ohio.
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We are working at the intersection of racial justice and climate action.
The Ohio Climate Justice Fund (‘the Fund’ or ‘OCJF’) is complemented by an advisory committee of Ohio environmental advocates and leaders whose charge is to advise and guide investments in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) organizations in Ohio, working at the intersection of racial justice and climate action.
Launched with seed funding and support from the George Gund Foundation, Energy Foundation and the Cleveland Foundation, the OCJF advances accessible community education and community listening efforts centered on creating a sustainable, equitable future for Ohio.
While 13 percent of Americans identify as Black, less than 10 percent of America’s clean-energy jobs are held by Black workers.
This staggering statistic rings painfully true in the clean-energy industry: While 13 percent of Americans identify as Black, less than 10 percent of America’s clean-energy jobs are held by Black workers. In the solar sector, the share is close to 7 percent — roughly the same as the oil and gas industry we so regularly chastise. The number of women in the clean-energy workforce, meanwhile, remains less than 20 percent.
Clean energy and cleantech may be among the fastest-growing sectors in America, with lower barriers to entry and higher wages. But the jobs that we’re touting, the promise of stability and prosperity that they hold for American families, are still almost exclusively handed to a single privileged group of Americans: white men.
-Bee Hui Yeh and Jacob Susman. October 2020, energynews.us
Majority minority communities facing disinvestment and cyclical poverty experience inequitable health burdens from energy. We have a moral obligation to future generations to reduce the pollution that’s threatening our health, warming the Earth and disrupting our climate. It’s a view that’s shared by millions of Americans, many of whom have spoken up for local, state and national action on the issue.
As the oceans warm, it’s no longer a question of if the Antarctic ice sheet will melt, but when and how fast. Warmer oceans are supercharging storms like Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. Rising seas are more frequently flooding cities from Boston to Miami. Wildfires in the West are burning hotter and lasting longer into the fall. These risks, and the health impacts from fossil fuel pollution, disproportionately threaten communities of color.
The solutions to climate change offer major new economic opportunities in clean energy and transportation technologies that offer Americans – most especially those who have historically been denied access – the opportunity to work in emerging industries that can’t be outsourced. We must put the fight for quality jobs and economic opportunity at the heart of a vision for a clean, equitable energy future.
