A top White House climate adviser will tell school superintendents on Wednesday that President Joe Biden wants more schools to go green, according to prepared remarks shared with POLITICO’s E&E News.
Ali Zaidi’s speech at the legislative advocacy conference of the School Superintendents Association and Association of School Business Officials comes as the nation bakes under suffocating heat waves. It also follows a demand from the Chicago Teachers Union — one of the country’s most powerful unions — to include climate action in collective bargaining agreements.
“Focusing on our nation’s schools — the literal buildings, buses and operations — is essential to taking on the climate crisis,” Zaidi says in the prepared remarks. “Schools can lead on reducing climate pollution and creating a safer, healthier learning environment for our children.”
Specifically, Zaidi will ask schools to commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent within the next 10 years through the Department of Energy’s Better Climate Challenge. He will also ask school officials to partner with labor organizations to create pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs to help train construction workers for a clean energy economy.
