As climate change hits the southeast, communities wrestle with politics, funding

(Inside Climate News, 27 Jan 2020) From Florida to West Virginia, cities and states are behind in meeting the challenge of climate change head on.

Like hundreds of other cities, Louisville, Kentucky, is searching for a path to address climate change.

Mayor Greg Fischer has declared a climate emergency, proposed a climate action plan and set a goal of reducing citywide carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. 

To get there, however, Fischer needs the cooperation of the region's electric utility, Louisville Gas and Electric Co., which depends on coal and, with its related companies, has committed only to cutting carbon emissions 70 percent from 2010 levels by 2050.

Even that more modest commitment, though, is now in doubt, based on recent comments by LG&E's chief operating officer, Lonnie Bellar, at an energy conference last fall, dominated by coal interests. In discussing his company's own carbon reduction plan, Bellar declined to make any promises about a clean energy future.

At the fall meeting of the Southern States Energy Board, an organization of Southern governors and lawmakers, Bellar said his company was planning for different carbon reduction options, "free of commitments."

"We want to continue to provide energy to our customers at a low reasonable cost," he said. "If that means coal it means coal. If that means some other resource, it means some other resource."

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Inside Climate News, 27 Jan 2020: As climate change hits the southeast, communities wrestle with politics, funding