The climate crisis is the definitive challenge of our time, and our reliance on fossil fuels is driving it. Other energy sources also pollute our air and water and threaten our health. But energy use doesn’t have to make us, or the planet, sick. That’s why Friends of the Earth promotes conservation and clean energy — including wind, solar and geothermal power — and why we fight to end our unhealthy dependence on dirty sources including coal, oil, nuclear and biofuels.
Current campaigns being waged by our climate and energy project seek to prevent the extraction and use of dirty tar sands oil (including our fight to stop the Keystone XL pipeline), to phase out our use of dangerous nuclear reactors, and to end federal incentives for the production of corn ethanol and other biofuels that raise food prices while harming the environment.
Confronting dirty, high-carbon fuels including tar sands oil
Tar sands oil is a high carbon fuel strip-mined from beneath Canada’s Boreal forest. Fuel from tar sands represents an increasingly significant portion of the fuel used in cars in the United States.
Protecting the public from dangerous nuclear reactors
Friends of the Earth’s nuclear campaign works to reduce risks for people and the environment by supporting efforts to close existing nuclear reactors and fighting proposals to design and build new reactors and use federal funds to underwrite such initiatives.
See our campaign to shut down the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility in California.
Ending government policies that promote corn ethanol and other harmful biofuels
Most biofuels in use today cause a great deal of harm to the environment. Friends of the Earth works to end federal policies that promote biofuels that pollute our air and water and destabilize our climate.
Working with the international community for a strong and just climate deal
Climate change is a global crisis that must be solved with international collaboration. Friends of the Earth is at the forefront of the push to persuade countries around the world to unite in support of a strong, fair, and aggressive response to this crisis.