The Green Zone

The Energy and Environment Program goes to school to teach climate justice.

Give NowAmerica’s schools are an important center of climate action, and the nation will need a generation of climate-savvy STEM innovators and socially aware thinkers to lead the way. Last year, the Energy and Environment Program launched the K12 Climate Action initiative, with a mission to unlock the power of the education sector as a force for climate action, solutions, and environmental justice.

Public schools are among the largest consumers of energy in the public sector, and school buses make up the largest mass-transit fleet in the country. Switching to renewable energy and electric buses would reduce emissions and pollution. Additionally, public schools serve more than 7 billion meals each year, giving the sector immense power to reshape the way an entire generation eats. Advancing climate action in schools, in particular in communities with high populations of low-income families, can also help advance environmental justice and ensure a just transition to a clean economy.

The initiative includes a commission of education, environment, and civil rights leaders co-chaired by former Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. and former Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman, as well as a coalition of more than 40 organizations. In 2020, K12 Climate Action released a state policy landscape report, hosted two public listening sessions, worked with the co-chairs to send a sign-on letter to the Biden-Harris transition team, and published opinion pieces elevating the role of schools in climate action.

Climate action has long been an exercise in educating the public. The Energy and Environment Program’s new initiative will help harness the power of the educational sector itself.