Earlier this year, Oregon’s groundbreaking Climate Protection Program began holding many of the state’s largest climate polluters accountable to a timeline for reducing greenhouse gas pollution and making a transition to clean energy sources.

It’s a scientific fact, this transition must happen, and quickly, to maintain a livable world for humanity and to curb the heath and economic harms to Oregonians from burning fossil fuels. 

Only a few months into the program, the state’s largest polluters and a group of industry lobbying organizations have chosen to sue Oregon in an attempt to roll back the clean air protections. 

"Rather than seize the opportunity to innovate and invest in the jobs and economic stability afforded by a transition to a clean energy future, corporate polluters are doubling down on obstruction,” said Nora Apter, Climate Program Director at Oregon Environmental Council.

"There's no question that ending our reliance on fossil fuels is essential to avoiding the most devastating impacts of climate change, and that it will involve a significant reshaping of our economy," said Representative Khah Pham (Portland, District 46). "Instead of resisting that change, we invite Oregon's business community to join our calls for more safeguards to ensure that the transition is an equitable and fair one. Suing to overturn the Climate Protection Program doesn't move us towards a just transition."

It's mid-March and Oregon’s legislature is mostly done for the year. 2022 is an even numbered year, so our lawmakers only meet for a maximum of 35 days, which makes it exceedingly difficult to tackle the crises piling up for Oregonians. 

Our Representatives and Senators achieved what they could in the short time, moving legislation to address homelessness, support working families and small businesses, drive down the cost of living, invest in community safety and violence prevention, and support stronger schools. 

So what about climate protection, clean energy, and environmental justice?

At Renew Oregon, we threw our weight behind a number of bills, helping mobilize folks and spread the word about legislation and investments to speed the transition to an equitable, clean energy economy and to protect Oregonians from the harms of climate change.

Are you happy with what legislators achieved in 2022?
Send a message now to let them know you’re a climate voter!

There’s more urgency for climate action in Oregon than ever before

Statewide coalition urges more action to reduce climate pollution and transition to clean energy 

We’re living in a climate emergency. The unprecedented outbreak of climate change-fueled wildfires across Oregon this summer brings a fierce urgency to the movement for climate action at every level of government, as our state faces lost lives and communities, and the fallout from weeks of hazardous smoke.

Marking a year since #FridaysForFuture climate action demonstrations filled the streets in at least 19 cities and towns across Oregon, bringing out more than 20,000 Oregonians from Seaside to Roseberg, Portland to La Grande, members of the Renew Oregon coalition demand to know how state leaders will continue to answer the call, especially in the legislature, which has failed to pass significant climate protection laws through four sessions.

100% Clean Economy: What does it look like?

There is a lot wrong with how we currently power our lives and economy, and a lot of people are suffering the consequences. Our elected leaders and big businesses have failed for a generation to listen to science and deal head-on with the leading cause of the climate crisis-- burning fossil fuels. 

There’s hope, because we’re not waiting on some big breakthrough. We can build a 100% clean economy with technology available to us today. The Oregon Climate Action Plan was adopted earlier this year. If it lives up to its ambitions, it will propel us toward a 100% Clean Economy. 

We have a basic responsibility to leave our kids and grandkids a healthy future, but the climate crisis and unchecked air and water pollution from dirty energy are putting that at risk. Whether it’s the coronavirus or climate change, we’ve seen what happens when people in power ignore science, delay action, and pass off their responsibility.

The health and economic consequences of failing to follow the science are well known for Oregonians.

#ClimateCrisis

😷 🔥  more severe wildfires and smoke threatening communities

👩🏽‍🌾 🌾 farmers struggling to grow enough food to feed us

👷 🧒🏿 👵 outdoor workers, children and elders suffering from heatwaves, lung & heart disease, and cancer 

💧 🚰 endangering clean drinking water 

🌲 🐟 🦀 our forest trees, river fish, and ocean crabs dying.

Is your stove making you sick? What do four walls and a roof have to do with the climate crisis? How are utility bills and racism connected?

All of these questions are linked to climate action! Oregon is undertaking its biggest climate action yet: The Oregon Climate Action Plan (OCAP). Years of Oregonians pushing our state to do more to stop the climate crisis have resulted in a sweeping set of climate actions getting underway in the next year and a half. 

We want you to know more about OCAP and what it does so you are empowered to defend it against polluting industries with us, when they try to rollback or weaken this major protection for our health and future. 

This installment is about Clean Buildings, a critical climate solution. If you think of the Oregon Climate Action Plan like a house, we’re actually passed the blueprint stage. The executive order putting OCAP into place is like having the foundation and the frame of the house already built! Over the next 16 months will be a series of rulemakings by the state, which is like putting all the wiring, plumbing and drywall in our Climate Action house. It’s the nitty gritty work of protecting our children’s future.

Corporate lobbyists will try to sell the rulemakers shoddy wires, poisonous pipes, and flimsy materials or try to convince them now is no time to build a house at all. We have to be ready to fight back and demand the strongest, most equitable climate action possible, built from the best stuff out there. 

Will you take the pledge to defend OCAP together?

For too long, Oregon hasn’t done enough to address the threat of the climate crisis, while every year wildfires burn hotter and longer, clean water is endangered and the temperatures rise. These impacts threatened our health and families, our farms, forests, and fisheries. 

Inaction ends in the year 2020! Whether through the legislature, governor’s office, or at the ballot, Oregonians refuse to let another year pass without significant climate action in our state. 

Oregon's largest climate protection campaign has a "you-sized" hole in it. Join here!

These next years are critical in determining what kind of world we leave our children -- with scientists only giving us about ten more years to basically cut our climate pollution in half. Oregon’s legislature has failed for three years in a row to pass bold climate legislation. Some young climate advocates have gone all the way through middle school and are now in high school waiting for our state’s leaders to step up. We don’t have any more time.

Give us that #ClimateHope

Everyone's favorite swashbuckling Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, shocked the world with an unexpected announcement that Canada would become the first country in our hemisphere to put a price on carbon pollution nationwide -- and by 2018.

A top trending topic on Facebook: a pretty scary article about an undeniable threshold. Our atmosphere is above 400 ppm of carbon dioxide and it won't come down in our lifetime. It's a little science-y, but that's a dangerous mark. Still not too late to turn things around with a clean energy revolution, but the window is closing fast!

Out-of-state oil companies and their allies spend big money in Oregon politics, trying to influence lawmakers to defeat clean energy policies. These huge corporations are putting their profits ahead of the people who live here and the climate we need to protect to keep enjoying our way of life.

Common Cause Oregon, along with many helpful partners, has put together a report on exactly which politicians in Oregon raked in the most money from polluters and how those same politicians voted on clean energy.

All this week, Common Cause is naming names and connecting the dots to follow the money.

You're invited to see who is on their list and what tactics out-of-state oil companies are using to stop progress toward a clean energy economy in Oregon.

First Agreement Spotlights New Collaboration with Mayors; Second Agreement Serves to Step Up Previous Efforts in Light of COP21 Global Climate Accord 

SAN FRANCISCO – On behalf of a region of 53 million residents, three U.S. governors and the B.C environment minister joined the mayors of six major West Coast cities to announce the Pacific North America Climate Leadership Agreement at the Clean 

Energy Ministerial (CEM7) today. Leaders from the Pacific Coast Collaborative (PCC)—a partnership between California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia—teamed up with mayors from Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Oakland, and Vancouver—all members of the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance—to approve the pact to move the region’s clean energy economy forward. With a combined GDP of USD $2.8 trillion, the Pacific North America region represents the world’s fifth largest economy.

The West Coast leaders announced the state-cities agreement as a part of the subnational portion of the Ministerial. Today andtomorrow, energy ministers, elected officials, business leaders, and other high-level delegates from 23 countries and the European Commission are working to fulfill the pledges they made last December at the COP21 global climate change talks in Paris with clean energy policy commitments.