Our Recent Global Warming Accomplishments
UCS fought back against well-funded attempts to deny global warming and delay needed action.
Won a victory for facts over fear.
UCS helped lead a statewide coalition that soundly defeated an attempt by Texas oil companies to scare voters into overturning California’s landmark global warming law. We educated voters with analysis showing the law would have little financial impact on small businesses, a statement from nearly 120 Ph.D. economists that delaying or abolishing the law would prove costly, and calls to some 20,000 UCS members in the state.
Safeguarded the Clean Air Act’s ability to combat global warming.
By issuing a statement signed by more than 2,500 scientists, we helped stop fossil-fuel interests and their Senate allies from blocking federal regulation of heat-trapping emissions. The statement reminded lawmakers that the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to address pollutants that “endanger public health and welfare.”
Helped California take the lead on renewable energy, clean jobs.
For over a decade, UCS has been a lead group advocating for an aggressive California renewable energy standard. By providing technical expertise on the state’s complex electricity sector, building and coordinating support from a broad range of stakeholders, meeting regularly with leading elected officials, engaging the media to report on the issue, and activating our own members to express their will, UCS was successful in matching our technical analysis and citizen activism with our policy success. With the help and leadership of UCS, California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) was signed into law in April 2011.
Protected forests and the climate.
UCS, working with more than 190 prominent scientists, convinced Congress to increase funding aimed at slowing tropical deforestation (which accounts for 15 percent of all global warming emissions).
In addition, our report The Plus Side, which showed how nations can prevent deforestation while preserving local livelihoods, played an instrumental role in producing a strong agreement on deforestation at international climate meetings in December 2010.
Support our work.
For more than 20 years, UCS has worked with leading experts to educate U.S. decision makers and the public about global warming, and practical solutions at an international, national, regional, and state level. You can help support this work:
