In a letter sent to California Governor Gavin Newsom and state leaders, a coalition of 18 California nonprofit organizations urged state policymakers to emphasize community energy resilience as part of state strategy to address COVID-19 recovery and prepare for future power shutoffs.

“Community energy resilience provides a sustainable, local path to economic recovery and public health using clean, local energy resources and zero-emission vehicles that help California stay steadfast in its climate action plans and air quality goals while also preparing for public safety power shutoffs and outages,” said Raghav Murali, policy director at the Center for Sustainable Energy.

“There cannot be climate justice without racial justice,” said Ellie Cohen, CEO of The Climate Center. “Many communities of color are being hit much harder than others by COVID-19 and climate change. State policy needs to prioritize and fund initiatives for deploying resilient clean energy infrastructure in low-income and indigenous communities.”

The coalition is urging state leaders to:

• Emphasize community-centric, local resilience planning
• Leverage microgrids to serve critical facilities, support clean emergency back-up power, and address community resilience needs
• Commit to California’s clean transportation transition to reduce the state’s largest source of greenhouse gases

View a copy of the coalition letter here.