The hearing will focus on ensuring a just, equitable transition to a
net-zero clean energy economy that creates good-paying, high-quality
jobs.
Witnesses:
Dr. Ana
Baptista,
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice and Associate Director of
the Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School, on behalf
of New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance and the Equitable and
Just Climate Forum. Dr. Baptista’s research and professional practice
focuses on environmental and climate justice. She works directly with
impacted communities and coalitions to support the advancement of
community-led alternatives to achieve environmental justice.
Jason
Walsh,
Executive Director, BlueGreen Alliance. Walsh has more than twenty
years of experience at state and federal levels in policy development
and advocacy in a range of issue areas, including climate, clean
energy, and economic and workforce development. He previously served
in the Obama administration, as the Director of the Office of
Strategic Programs in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and as a Senior Policy Advisor in the
White House Domestic Policy Council, where he led the Obama
administration’s efforts to align and scale up federal investments in
workers and communities impacted by the shift away from coal in the
power sector.
Beth
Soholt,
Executive Director, Clean Grid Alliance (CGA_Midwest), on behalf of
American Council on Renewable Energy and Americans for a Clean Energy
Grid. Soholt has more than 15 years of experience working with the
electric industry, with a focus on helping overcome the barriers to
bringing wind power to market. She holds a seat on the Midwest
Independent System Operator (MISO) Advisory Committee, representing
the Environmental Sector.
Michael
Shellenberger
(Minority Witness), Founder and President, Environmental Progress
Join our chair Michelle Deatrick July 22 at 7pm ET as she facilitates a
conversation between actress
and activist Jane Fonda, Representative Deb Haaland (D-NM), Sunrise
Movement National Spokesperson Naina Agrawal-Hardin, and 350 Action’s
North America Director, Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, about why Democrats
need to run on climate.
Around the world, climate change is driving mass migration as water
dries up, farmland turns to desert, shorelines erode, coastal areas
flood, permafrost melts and ecosystems can no longer support the
communities they once could. And it is going to get much much worse. As
far back as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on
human migration – and we’re seeing this projection come true. The latest
estimates predict as many as 200 million climate refugees by 2050.
This is a climate and human rights crisis. Climate migrants routinely
face life threatening hardship, discrimination and repression in their
search for safety for their families, and often those most vulnerable to
changing climate and extreme weather lack the resources to migrate, so
remain in harm’s way.
Even worse, many of the same banks that made billions of dollars
financing the fossil fuel industry that caused the climate crisis- Black
Rock, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase- are now profiting off of climate
chaos by investing in the companies that are contracting with
ICE to finance border wall construction and
run for-profit prisons and detention centers. First they drive climate
migration, and then they profit from it.
On December 6th, we’re going to shut down
business-as-usual for the
financial institutions that profit off of the climate crisis and
immigrant detention. Meet us at 11am in Franklin Square (14th St. and I
St. NW, Washington, DC 20005) for a rally
featuring Jane Fonda and Fire Drill Fridays along with Saket Soni, the
Executive Director of the National Guestworker Alliance, GreenFaith, the
Franciscan Action Network and other climate, faith and migrant justice
organizers. At 12 noon we’ll march through the streets of DC to visit
the banks and financial institutions in DC that are profiting off of the
climate crisis and immigrant detention.
Dr. Neil Jacobs, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental
Observation and Prediction, performing the duties of Under Secretary
of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, NOAA
Dr. Clifford Mass, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of
Washington
Dr. Peter P. Neilley, IBM Distinguished
Engineer and Director of Weather Forecasting Sciences and
Technologies, The Weather Company, An IBM
Business
Dr. Thomas Auligné, Director of the Joint Center for Satellite Data
Assimilation, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)