We need to move at an emergency speed around the world to rapidly phase out fossil fuels and accelerate our pathway toward a decarbonized world. Right now we are facing a substantial deployment gap—only 10 percent of the global low-emissions technologies needed to reach net zero by 2025 have been deployed. This means that in the U.S. alone we need to build the equivalent of two 200MW projects every day for the next decade to hit our climate goals. We must reach beyond this moment and choose the pathway of possibility.

Clean power has undeniably become a vital and lasting part of the U.S. economy, with strong support across ideological spectrums. At the local level, we have tremendous opportunities and work to do in effectively communicating and demonstrating the economic benefits of renewables to the communities who have the potential to be future hosts of clean energy projects. We must flatten the curve of opposition and NIMBYism locally, fueled by disinformation; we must win hundreds of site fights, development-friendly ordinances and better regulatory conditions; and we must build the equivalent of two 200 MW projects every day over the next decade across the U.S. to hit our climate goals.

In 2022 ACE launched the Clean Economy Accelerator, since then we have reached more than 50 million Americans in key audiences who are typically resistant to climate messaging with content in both English and Spanish—persuading them to see decarbonization as a benefit to them. In its first year alone, we generated an average persuasion effect of more than 15pp, and peaking at 30pp, across 40 outcomes measured by more than a dozen randomized controlled trials. In social science terms, this is an extraordinary impact—largely because many of these communities receive little-to-no neutral, third party education on the economic benefits of local utility-scale renewables.

ACE’s grounding theory of change—reaching, persuading and activating audiences beyond the climate movement echo chamber with trusted local messengers who amplify job, economic, and community benefits, delivered from politically innocuous brands, is a winning approach poised for further scale and powered by the following core tactics.

1. Strategic Communications and Media

• Leverage smart data and mapping software to target communities that have the most promising capacity for utility-scale clean energy projects, the greatest potential for clean energy jobs, and the largest gaps in consumer uptake of electrification.
• Run large-scale, measurable persuasion campaigns to reach, educate and activate community members in these areas about the economic incentives and community benefits of the clean economy.
• Run smart, localized field campaigns to support local governments and voters with the information they need to apply for federal dollars locally, green-light utility-scale clean energy projects and maximize individual and community decarbonization benefits.
• Use community-based storytelling to tell the stories of real people who have benefited directly from decarbonization and the clean economy in their communities.

2. Local Organizing

• Mobilize our 1.2 million Youth Action Network members—one third of whom live in rural communities— to show up, testify, conduct petition drives, educate leaders, tell their stories, and ultimately advocate to advance new utility-scale renewables in their communities.
• Educate local elected officials about the community benefits of utility-scale clean energy projects development-friendly policy, building and home electrification, and transportation electrification solutions.
• Partner deeply with a constellation of local, regional, and national partners on shared goals to close the gap in public awareness and support for decarbonization in rural America.

3. Diverse Participation in Our Democracy

• Register, educate and turn out diverse voters up and down the ballot through both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) voter engagement programs with a focus on state legislative chambers, state Supreme Courts, City Councils, County Commissions, Port Commissions, and Public Utility Commissions.
• Ensure elected leaders and federal oversight bodies to double down on the clean energy transition—from advancing permitting reform and community solar to spreading climate super fund legislation.