JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville’s three-letter water and electric utility has been assigned a new letter: F.
That’s the grade given JEA in a new report evaluating the climate promises made by 79 utilities around the country.
According to "The Dirty Truth: About Utility Climate Pledges," the Sierra Club study found JEA's stated goals to reduce climate-changing carbon emissions are not nearly ambitious enough.
Scientists worldwide almost universally agree that limiting global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F), the level set by the Paris Climate Accord, is needed to prevent irreversible species decline, cataclysmic weather patterns and mass population migration due to dwindling resources.
And there isn't much time to reach that goal. Researchers agree significant changes must occur in the next decade in order to avert crossing that threshold.
Power plants are among the largest emitters of greenhouse gasses, mostly carbon created from fossil fuels. JEA has eliminated some major carbon sources in its power inventory, including the coal-fired St Johns River Power Park, which was taken offline in 2018. At the time, it was one of the dirtiest power plants in the state.
JEA officials said the utility will have cut overall emissions by 60% between 2007 and 2024. It hopes to have 30% of its energy come from carbon-neutral sources by 2030. However, some utilities have pledged to have net-zero emissions in the same period, and the report says utilities should commit to at least 80%.
Susannah Randolph, senior campaign representative for Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, said while Florida is uniquely imperiled by climate change, it is also uniquely positioned to lead by example.
"We don't we don't actually generate any jobs from fossil fuels in Florida. Fracking is out of state, you know, coal mines are out of state," Rudolph explained. "We are the Sunshine State, you would think that on a basic economic level, we would be doing more to ramp up solar."
Randolph observes that for JEA, the chaos of the past year few years, including the failed sale, the firing of its CEO and entire Board of Directors, could make it somewhat less focused on climate priorities.
"We've seen is that municipal utility leadership really is fueled by the mayoral leadership. So if the mayor says, and the City Council says we have to do our part, this is important to our constituents, the municipal utility will figure it out," Randolph said. "I think the sale and the scandals that occurred probably make it harder for JEA to do anything without having a bigger, more powerful amount of leadership coming from the mayor's office."
Cara Botteroff, a data analyst who worked on the Dirty Truth report, said while the grades look grim, the aim is to hold utilities feet to the fire.
"We've seen so many utilities coming out with these climate pledges, which is basically just a statement, we're going to do x. [...] What we found when we looked into this is that they really are not doing what they need to do behind the scenes to get them to that end point," Botteroff said. "So we wanted to dig into what what their actual action plan is, so that it can be more transparent, for the public, for policymakers, for everyone."
Asked for comment on the report, JEA sent the following statement:
"JEA takes its impact on the environment very seriously and considers environmental impacts, customer impacts, costs, power quality and electric reliability when making any long-term commitments. JEA continues to diversify its electric generation portfolio with the addition of renewable energy resources, including solar, natural gas and biogas.
"JEA is engaged in environmental matters and continues to assess our long-term commitments, adapting to industry changes and meeting customer needs. By 2024, JEA will have reduced its carbon emissions by 60 percent [since 2007] with the closing of SJRPP and Plant Scherer, as well as the addition of Plant Vogtle and 250 MW of solar in JEA’s service area. JEA is issuing a Request for Proposals to develop an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) that will be used to determine JEA’s long range energy supply."