Our Policy Positions

SUMMARY

As people of faith, we are called to be caretakers of all Creation. Due to climate change, roughly one third of America’s wildlife species are at some degree of elevated risk of extinction. Currently, more than 1,600 U.S. species are listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Respecting and protecting the unique creatures that share our world is a moral responsibility.

BACKGROUND 

From bees to salmon to polar bears, keystone species are threatened by climate change and pollution. Reducing global warming is urgent, but we can also help these species adapt by protecting the habitat where they live and raise their young: forests, grasslands, rivers, oceans and streams.

Healthy ecosystems that support wildlife can lock up carbon while increasing Earth’s resilience to climate impacts. Restoring wildlife habitats can protect communities by reducing the risks from extreme wildfires and storms. Intact forests allow for generations of fish and wildlife to build homes and raise their young, protected by the shade of varied-age trees. Cavities in old trees and fallen logs are among the most favored nesting spots for birds and other forest dwellers. Older forests moderate latitude, altitude, rainfall and temperature.

 Proactive conservation efforts can help save thousands of species from extinction. Protecting wildlife can also create  jobs that support the outdoor economy and other key sectors. Tribal nations, the original stewards of this land, must also be respected and supported in implementing their own conservation efforts. 

IPL supports efforts to protect wildlife through policies such as marine conservation zones, sustainable fishing, land and water conservation, support for tribal nations, and the global biodiversity framework of setting aside 30% of Earth for nature by 2030.

REFERENCE LINKS

National Wildlife Federation: https://www.nwf.org/Our-Work/Wildlife-Conservation

Forest habitat: (Watson et al. 2016)

UN Environment Program Biodiversity Conference: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/cop15-ends-landmark-biodiversity-agreement#:~:text=The%20GBF%20aims%20to%20address,ecosystems%20under%20protection%20by%202030.

SUMMARY

Presently, it seems likely that hydrogen will be an important climate solution for hard-to-electrify sectors such as cement and steel production. IPL supports green hydrogen only and will remain vigilant about making sure it can truly meet its promise while using and supporting new sources of clean energy. 

BACKGROUND 

Hydrogen can be produced in a variety of ways, including using fossil fuels like methane “natural” gas, nuclear power, biogas, biomass, and renewable energy like solar and wind. It is clean-burning, and when combined with oxygen in a fuel cell, hydrogen produces heat and electricity with only water vapor as a by-product, but creating it can be carbon pollution intensive. 

The different colors of hydrogen refer to its method of production. Green hydrogen uses renewable energy to electrolyze water molecules, splitting water into its separate components, hydrogen and oxygen. In this policy statement, we are only concerned with green hydrogen as IPL sees green hydrogen as the only form of hydrogen production that is fully compatible with a net-zero emission energy future. Green hydrogen is currently 4 to 6 times more expensive than fossil hydrogen and makes up less than 1 percent of U.S. hydrogen production. 

At this time, it appears hydrogen will be important in hard-to-electrify  sectors. In the United States, the industrial sector is the third largest source of climate pollution after transportation and electricity generation. The industrial sector has some difficult-to-abate  climate pollution, including steel and cement production. Green hydrogen can produce the high-temperature heat needed to power industrial processes. 

Hydrogen should only be used in certain sectors – electrification is largely a better solution. But the International Energy Agency’s net-zero emission scenario shows that hydrogen is vital in a limited role. Hydrogen will account for about 10 percent of final energy consumption, according to their model. 

Federal and state policy is needed for the hydrogen economy to scale successfully. In particular, states have an important role to play in prioritizing end uses, integrating, planning, permitting, and handling regulations, standards, and certifications that verify emissions and ensure safety. Hydrogen producers must use new sources of clean energy, avoiding RECs and matching consumption and production of the clean energy.  

Hydrogen leakage has potentially negative climate consequences. Hydrogen is an indirect greenhouse gas, meaning that hydrogen emissions do not directly warm the atmosphere but instead increase the concentration of other greenhouse gases like methane, water vapor, and ozone, contributing to global warming.  

New peer-reviewed research by the Environmental Defense Fund found that hydrogen leakage impacts are greater than previously thought. Hydrogen can leak relatively easily into the atmosphere, and we currently cannot measure hydrogen leakage to the level needed. Large leaks are measured for safety concerns as opposed to smaller leaks, but small leaks likely also have negative climate impacts.  

There is broad consensus that green hydrogen can help us meet our climate goals. But hydrogen’s ability to play a role in a climate-safe  economy hinges on its own production being clean, supporting new clean energy development, and not leaking to any significant amount.  

Used in a limited and appropriate manner, hydrogen could be a powerful decarbonization tool, but we must get the basics right to enable the hydrogen economy to scale successfully.  Success means that outcomes are equitable and inclusive, commercially viable, and sustainable over the long term. Green hydrogen, if properly implemented, could supplement and complement  electrification. It must not further entrench natural gas. IPL supports green hydrogen only and will remain vigilant about making sure it can truly meet its promise to decarbonize a few otherwise hard-to-decarbonize  sectors. 

REFERENCE LINKS

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/hydrogen/the-great-green-hydrogen-battle

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/what-is-green-hydrogen-expert-explains-benefits/

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/10/20904213/climate-change-steel-cement-industrial-heat-hydrogen-ccs

https://rmi.org/insight/fueling-the-transition-accelerating-cost-competitive-green-hydrogen/

https://rmi.org/insight/policy-memo-clean-hydrogen-abatement/#:~:text=Based%20on%20an%20assessment%20of,dioxide%20equivalent%20(CO2e)%20per

 https://rmi.org/policy-priorities-to-spur-the-green-hydrogen-economy/#:~:text=The%20International%20Renewable%20Energy%20Agency,%242.5%2Fkg%20for%20blue%20hydrogen. 

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/rachel-fakhry/green-hydrogen-lets-get-it-right-start

 https://blog.ucsusa.org/julie-mcnamara/does-new-hydrogen-hubs-program-comes-with-risks-and-opportunities/ 

https://blog.ucsusa.org/julie-mcnamara/whats-the-role-of-hydrogen-in-the-clean-energy-transition/ 

https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/topics/hydrogen 

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/hydrogen-carbon-intensive-energy-solution/

https://www.edf.org/blog/2022/03/07/hydrogen-climate-solution-leaks-must-be-tackled

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/13/business/hydrogen-climate-change.html

https://www.csis.org/analysis/making-hydrogen-hubs-success

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03699-0 

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06112022/oil-companies-hydrogen-production/ 

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/oil-and-gas/our-insights/the-clean-hydrogen-opportunity-for-hydrocarbon-rich-countries

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00626-z

Climate change presents a threat to all of Creation and particularly to vulnerable populations living in poverty around the globe. We recognize that climate change impacts hit those already suffering from poverty and insecure living conditions “first and worst” and, in a majority of instances, these populations bear little responsibility for contributing the greenhouse gas emissions primarily responsible for climate change.

Interfaith Power & Light supports international climate funding, such as the Green Climate Fund. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is an international fund designed to address the critical climate change mitigation and adaptation needs of developing nations – to foster resilience and low-emission development. The main purpose of the GCF is to help build the capability of developing nations to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through low carbon development pathways and to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. The GCF continues an established history of US leadership and support on climate finance extending across both Republican and Democratic Administrations. During the George W. Bush Administration, the US pledged $2 billion to the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds (CIFs). The CIFs were always intended to transition into a larger more permanent fund

Investment in mitigation and adaptation is not only our moral obligation as a major contributor to climate change, but also a sound investment in alleviating poverty and ensuring global food security now and in the future.

The United States’ funding toward international climate funding is important for three additional reasons: one, U.S. funding helps to build trust among developed and developing countries – trust that is essential to reaching on-going international agreements aimed at actions that address climate disruption; two, funding assists developing nations to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through low carbon development pathways and to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change – strategies that will have the co-benefit of building needed infrastructure; and three, central to many international funding agreements is the commitment of the private sector, facilitating the use of innovative financial strategies in addressing climate change.

People of faith all around the world have gathered at international events, such as the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen and Paris, demanding action by the world body to not only reduce the threat of climate change, but to provide funding for those hardest hit in the least developed countries who bear little responsibility for this crisis. We understand that, when one part of the global community suffers, we all suffer. Support for international climate funding is one way to address both the immediate suffering and the long-term reduction of climate change impacts.

Transportation accounts for nearly a third of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. Most vehicles produce several times their weight in carbon pollution each year from the dirty fuels on which we depend. These emissions are not only contributing greatly to global warming, but they’re polluting our air and compromising our health. By addressing the transportation sector, we have the opportunity to accelerate the transition to a clean energy future while improving Americans’ health and quality of life. We will simultaneously decrease our dependenceon foreign oil, reduce our trade deficit and increase our energy security.

Interfaith Power & Light advocates for transportation policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide affordable transit options, protect the most vulnerable among us, and support the health of our communities. We also realize that the needs of urban and rural communities may differ and all of these needs must be taken into consideration in moving toward transportation policies that look to the future.

IPL supports transportation policies that improve efficiency and reduce emissions of transportation including cars, trucks, trains and aircraft. This includes fuel efficiency standards for all vehicle classes and a rapid transition to low-carbon fuels, support for R&D around electric vehicles and responsibly produced biofuels, and funding for effective mass transit, while addressing transportation needs in rural areas. IPL supports policies that advance smart local land use planning that reduces reliance on the automobile and improves livability. IPL also supports funding to redesign existing and new roadways to support safe walking and bicycling. IPL does not support subsidizing fossil fuel extraction or pricing fossil fuels without factoring in the costs of climate and public health impacts.

Transportation policies that reduce pollution, improve fuel efficiency, provide better transportation choices, and encourage healthy communities are a vital component of a clean energy future.

As communities of faith organizing a religious response to global warming, we believe that climate disruption is among the greatest challenges that humanity has ever encountered. We commit ourselves to the moral imperative of preserving and protecting the planet for generations to come. There can be no effective strategy to address climate disruption without significant restructuring of our electricity production including a rapid and just transition from antiquated coal power generation.

The current technology of burning coal to produce electricity carries huge societal costs around air and water pollution and is one of the most significant drivers of climate disruption. These external costs are not captured in the price of coal power. Every step of the current coal-fired process is dangerous to human health, from mining and processing to burning and storage of waste ash. Those most often impacted by these dangerous processes are the most vulnerable members of our communities: the poor, the elderly, and children.

Science clearly indicates that we must reduce our output of carbon dioxide and other global warming pollution. Transitioning away from coal and other fossil fuels is a crucial step in mitigating climate disruption. In the United States that means we must halt the construction of all new coal power plants unless and until we can conclusively demonstrate safe and affordable carbon capture and storage. Existing coal plants utilizing 20th century technology should be phased out as quickly as possible as we transition to clean energy and become more energy efficient.

We know that all forms of coal mining are dangerous, imperil human health, and degrade landscapes and human communities. Particularly egregious is mountaintop removal mining, which has permanently destroyed over 500 mountains and 1500 miles of streams, while putting human communities in Appalachia in harm’s way from toxins in their air and water. We therefore oppose mountaintop removal mining and advocate for its immediate discontinuation.

We also oppose the export of coal from the United States to be burned in Asia. Shipping coal from Montana and Wyoming on uncovered trains to ports in the Pacific Northwest or Gulf Coast would cause immediate and devastating health, environmental, transportation, and community impacts along the rail route, in addition to air, water, and climate pollution generated by burning the coal.

As we transition to clean energy, we must work to remediate and restore the land and communities that have been degraded and economically exploited from coal mining, shipping, and burning. We support programs to provide jobs training to displaced coal workers and restoration of degraded lands.

While we recognize this transition is complex and will require significant investments, we have great faith in the ingenuity and spirit of America. We have come together many times in the past in the face of adversity and challenge. We believe we can come together for a shared purpose to make this transition to clean energy and offer a bright future for our children and grandchildren.

Biomass energy is energy from recently living things such as food crops, trees and plants, residues from agriculture or forestry, oil-rich algae, and the organic component of municipal and industrial wastes. Wood is the largest biomass energy resource today. Biomass can be burned to create heat and electricity or processed into biofuel.1

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been gaining attention from both industrial and political leaders as a solution that would theoretically allow for the continued use of fossil fuels while protecting the climate. (In this context, CCS refers to technological processes that attempt to remove carbon dioxide while burning fossil fuels. To be clear, natural processes that capture carbon, like good forest and agricultural management, are important tools in addressing the climate crisis.) As people of faith and conscience motivated by an ethical and moral commitment to the truth and care for our communities and Creation, we oppose any plan for CCS that falsely implies we can safely continue to burn fossil fuels as a major source of energy.

A spiritual lens requires that policies take into consideration the common good, care for our neighbors, and the gift of our common home. Too often, proponents of CCS ignore these elements and the continued harm that CCS power plants would cause through local air pollution. These proponents also ignore the lack of successful and cost effective CCS projects in existence, while simultaneously questioning the efficacy of widely affordable, truly clean technologies like wind and solar power. Endless funding for further research on CCS steals away funding that should be used to expand renewable energy and assist those suffering the effects of climate change. 

With limited exceptions for hard to decarbonize industrial sectors, IPL views CCS as a false solution that promises climate action while instead providing cover for continued fossil fuel pollution. Instead of dealing with the broken relationship between humanity and our common home, CCS attempts to paper over the divide.

What is CCS?

Carbon capture technology uses chemical reactions to remove carbon dioxide either before or, most commonly for power plants, after a fossil fuel has been burned for energy. The carbon dioxide is then transported through pipelines, either as a gas or a pressurized liquid, to a storage facility. Often storage facilities are in natural underground formations, risking a massive release of stored carbon dioxide during an earthquake or other geological event. Some geologists have even raised concerns that underground storage could in itself contribute to increased earthquakes.

Captured carbon dioxide can also be used in oil fields or coal beds to facilitate the production of even more fossil fuels, defeating the stated purpose of reducing carbon pollution.

Lack of feasibility

Despite many years of promises and huge investments, CCS projects continue to come up short. In one prominent example, the Petra Nova CCS plant in Texas, initially billed as the future of US electrical production, closed in 2020 after only 3 years. It cost $1 billion, including $190 million in government subsidies, and captured far less carbon dioxide than projected.

Other high profile failures include the FutureGen project in Illinois, which failed to open after spending $125 million in federal and local subsidies, and the Gorgon project by Chevron in Australia, which is estimated to have achieved less than a third of its intended carbon storage despite a $3 billion price tag.

To fossil fuel companies, the ability to funnel public climate funding into their existing fossil fuel infrastructure is a clear win. As people of faith, we must consider how these resources could be better used to achieve climate justice and protect overburdened communities.

Environmental justice concerns

While CCS may remove carbon dioxide from polluting sources like power plants, it leaves other kinds of pollution in place. Communities around a coal CCS plant, for instance, would still be forced to deal with mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter, as well as lead and arsenic.

We fear that widespread CCS may make it easier for political leaders to ignore the pollution inflicted upon the low-wealth communities and Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities that are disproportionately burdened by local air pollution.

Furthermore, power plants with CCS require more fuel to operate, since the CCS systems themselves use large amounts of electricity to capture carbon. This could produce even more local air pollution than the power plants produce without CCS.

Finally, when considering using CCS with methane gas, it is important to note that much of the climate pollution caused by methane comes from extraction and transportation. Methane leaks, which often occur during drilling or transporting through pipelines, are a climate super polluter. These leaks also cause various health problems for neighbors in frontline communities that will not be addressed by CCS.

Limited necessity

CCS may have an important role to play in hard to decarbonize industrial sectors. At the present moment, important resources like concrete and steel still cannot be made without producing a large amount of carbon dioxide. In these limited settings, implementing CCS could be the most effective way to reduce carbon pollution.

However, as people of faith and conscience who care for our common home and the communities most impacted by fossil fuel pollution, we reject the false promise of CCS as a technology that will allow us to continue to power our economy with fossil fuels. Now is the time to eliminate climate pollution at the source. We must turn instead to truly clean, renewable energy, and follow the leadership of environmental justice communities in creating a clean, just economy that works for us all.

Interfaith Power & Light (IPL) strongly opposes the mining and exploitation of Canada’s tar sands oil because of the unprecedented risk it poses to Earth’s climate. IPL also stands in opposition of the oil’s transportation across America’s heartland in the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to Texas ports for refining and distribution to overseas markets.

IPL is joining with other faith leaders and environmental organizations in asking President Obama to deny Transcanada’s permit to construct the pipeline. IPL’s concerns are backed by the newly released, taxpayer supported, National Climate Assessment report. It’s the product of thirteen top federal agencies and their scientists, backed by a $2 billion dollar annual budget. It was produced for the president and Congress to inform policy decisions. Deciding the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline is just such a decision. According to the report, climate change will have severe impacts on ecosystems, infrastructures, and human health if we continue on the current path of heavy fossil fuel consumption. It also underscores that the decisions made today will determine how much climate change will disrupt the future.

The majority of confirmed tar sands deposits are under the boreal forests of Alberta, Canada. The boreal forests represent 25 percent of the intact, original forests on the planet and are a global resource for filtering the Earth’s water, removing carbon from the atmosphere, and regulating the climate. This region of Alberta is also home to the First Nations indigenous peoples of Canada, who are greatly affected by the mining of tar sands. They are also standing in opposition to the further development of tar sands because of the harm that occurs to their native lands, the animals that share the land, and their traditional hunting and fishing economy.

The mining of tar sands is a resource intensive process that emits up to three times the carbon of conventional oil. The production of tar sands to liquid fuel requires natural gas to create steam that literally melts the tar off the sand. The recovered crude then needs to be refined. In the end, for every barrel of syncrude produced, around four barrels of water and 1,200 cubic feet of natural gas are required. The dirty wastewater is often pumped into enormous holding reservoirs, which pollute the environment with toxic substances that are dangerous to human health and wildlife populations. Communities located in proximity to current tar sands operations have experienced elevated cancer rates.

The focus on obtaining liquid fuel from tar sands is a serious and costly diversion from America’s responsibility to lead the way toward a clean energy future. We cannot afford to become dependent on yet another dirty source of fuel. Instead,IPL urges a focus on transportation solutions such as better vehicle fuel efficiency, alternative fuels, more funding for mass transit, and electric cars.

Interfaith Power & Light works to promote ethical, moral, just and sound solutions to global warming and energy needs. The urgency of the climate crisis demands a rapid transition to clean, safe, cost-effective energy sources. While nuclear power plants release no carbon dioxide, there is no nuclear technology being used for energy that meets these criteria.

For the following reasons, IPL does not believe building new nuclear plants presents a viable solution to global warming.

Cost and Timeline: The high cost and long time frame required to build new nuclear plants is prohibitive, given the immediacy of global warming. Energy efficiency and conservation are the fastest, cleanest, and cheapest ways to achieve significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions and this should be our first focus. Taking into account the entire life cycle of mining uranium (a nonrenewable resource) and disposing of the waste, nuclear power production is neither clean nor renewable. Investing billions of dollars in this technology drains funds away from much more cost effective, rapidly deployable, and truly renewable alternatives, such as wind, geothermal, and solar power. (For more information on cost, please see economic studies referenced below)

Safety: From mining uranium to the end of the fuel cycle the technology is not safe. Until scientists find a safe way to deal with radioactive waste generated at every phase, building more nuclear power plants would be irresponsible to present and future generations. The link to weapons proliferation and terrorism cannot be avoided. Placing dangerous nuclear materials in the midst of our communities poses an unacceptable risk of a catastrophic event. Such an event could be a massive release of radiation due to a plant meltdown or a terrorist attack, and could kill tens of thousands of people as well as poison large areas with radioactivity for millennia.

Justice: As people of faith, we believe in justice that transcends generations, race and class. Our indigenous brothers and sisters and economically poor communities in the US and throughout the world carry a disproportionate burden of past uranium mining legacies and end waste that pollute water and harm health. Passing on radioactive materials, with a half-life of 100,000 years, to thousands of generations to come is a profound moral failure. Even a small accident could cause the contamination of groundwater for 300,000 years.

As an additional justice issue, nuclear power plants require enormous amounts of fresh water, a precious resource whose growing scarcity is increasingly at the heart of resource conflicts and the suffering of humans and other species.Therefore, IPL urges a redoubled focus on energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable resources to avert the worst impacts of climate change.
Economic studies:

• The Rocky Mountain Institute has conducted extensive economic analysis of the cost of nuclear compared to renewables. See: “The Nuclear Illusion” By Amory Lovins and Imran Sheikh.
• The Nuclear Policy Research Institute and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research have published an excellent book detailing the possibilities for reaching a carbon free future without nuclear energy: Carbon Free and Nuclear Free, A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy by Arjun Makhijani.
• Taxpayers for Common Sense has documented the often overlooked and exorbitant costs the U.S. taxpayers would be asked to absorb in the event of a nuclear accident.