As climate change brings more devastating impacts to the Southwest, it’s more important than ever to include low-income and frontline communities in climate action plans. We will not reach our climate goals if we do not include this large segment of the population in these strategic plans. More importantly, frontline communities are often the first to feel the impacts of global warming and the group to experience the worst of those impacts. It is vital that we focus on inclusion of these communities in all of SWEEP’s carbon reduction work.
In this webinar, SWEEP’s Tammy Fiebelkorn and New Mexico Representative Kristina Ortez will discuss this important focus and highlight program and policy examples that assist low-income communities to reduce carbon emissions, reduce their energy costs, and improve public health.
Representative Ortez and Tammy work together on a variety of programs and policies to fight climate change and help frontline communities. They created and received legislative approval for the Community Energy Efficiency Development Block Grant Act in New Mexico which provides energy burden reductions for frontline communities via energy efficiency and beneficial electrification; and they also passed legislation providing tax credits, which double for low-income people, for improving the energy efficiency of homes.
