OCTOBER 26, 2022, NEW ORLEANS—The Great Plains Institute today launched the Carbon Action Alliance, a new initiative to align and grow a network of government, industry, labor, environmental, and community partners to work together toward a common goal of achieving economywide deployment of carbon management and industrial decarbonization technologies in the United States to achieve net-zero emissions by midcentury.

The Carbon Action Alliance’s work is guided by and will align the advocacy platforms and policy positions of three partner initiatives also convened by the Great Plains Institute: Carbon Capture Coalition, Regional Carbon Capture Deployment Initiative, and the Industrial Innovation Initiative.

While those existing initiatives primarily focus on convening experts and building consensus around bipartisan policies, the Carbon Action Alliance will inform the public and otherwise connect local communities with those who have been working toward economywide adoption of carbon management and industrial decarbonization technologies. It will be the nation’s first integrated federal and state advocacy network for public action on carbon management at federal, state, and regional levels.

The alliance’s education and advocacy platform will involve a range of technologies that capture carbon emissions from facilities or the atmosphere and transport them for permanent storage or conversion. The Carbon Action Alliance will also help to advance opportunities in clean procurement and hydrogen technologies and use.

“There are billions of dollars in federal funding right now to help industries and communities be part of the clean energy transition,” said Bridget Callaghan, Carbon Action Alliance manager. “We want people to be aware of carbon management and industrial decarbonization opportunities as they consider what their energy future will look like.”

The Carbon Action Alliance aligns stakeholders to ensure that carbon management and industrial decarbonization technologies, projects, and infrastructure are included as part of an equitable approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the energy and industrial sectors while retaining and expanding a high-wage jobs base.

An example of this work includes the alliance’s current efforts to design a decision support tool to assist with siting carbon management projects. The tool, which is being co-developed with community and developer input, will allow users to overlay self-selected community values into a geospatial data model that includes more traditional considerations, such as policy and environmental constraints.

“Carbon management and industrial decarbonization are two of many options in the suite of decarbonization tools,” Callaghan said. “This new network will help connect people with the resources and stakeholders needed to make informed decisions, so we can collectively work toward meeting midcentury climate goals.”

The new network was officially launched at an event featuring experts from the US Department of Energy, Louisiana and Pennsylvania state governments, labor, industry, environmental NGOs, and others exploring ways to collaborate to address carbon management challenges, support project deployment, and benefit communities.

The Carbon Action Alliance is an initiative of the Great Plains Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization aimed at transforming the energy system to benefit the economy and environment. Learn more about the alliance at carbonactionalliance.org.

Media Contact:
Darren Goode
[email protected]
(202) 550-6619