2021

When we are faced with a big goal that has never been accomplished, our understanding of what is possible is constrained, limited by our own notion of what can be achieved. You can do nothing more than start the work, learn as you go, and take the next necessary but seemingly impossible steps, and then suddenly you are doing the impossible. 

This is how Western Resource Advocates approaches our work. We take the West’s biggest challenges and tackle them with tenacity and grit, persevering until the job is done. Our team of policy experts, scientists, economists, and attorneys has a 33-year history of working where decisions are made, sweating the details, creating evidence-based solutions, and holding decision makers accountable.  

WRA has been working to cut carbon emissions in the Western United States for decades, long before climate change gripped the collective consciousness of the West, as it does today. Ten years ago, the region was still so reliant on coal-powered energy that carbon emissions from the power sector were near their peak, the energy storage industry was in its infancy, and renewables had yet to reach price parity with coal.    

But WRA saw the need for and the possibility of a different future. We used our unique policy and regulatory expertise to think on scale about the problem and developed and launched a bold, innovative, and compelling plan to reduce half of the region’s power sector carbon pollution by 2030. At the time, that was an audacious goal and even some of our partners and friends thought it was unachievable.  

Yet our partners played an important role in the work to achieve these objectives. WRA doesn’t work alone, and we aren’t solely responsible for the region’s progress in reducing climate pollution. And because of our specialized ability to work directly and effectively with decision makers and legislators, with regulators and utilities, where few others engage, this plan is working. WRA’s work on the ground, in the arenas where decisions get made, is catalyzing policy change that is putting the West on track to reduce carbon pollution consistent with the science, to protect our communities and the community of living things.

We are now integrating this successful approach across the organization by focusing all of our resources on creating a healthier and more equitable future for the West. We have the expertise and experience to achieve big goals. We know that we must take care of the land as if our lives depend on it. Because they do. We will act now with greater ambition than ever before, with stronger plans and increased sophistication, and we will not stop until we find the best and most viable solutions to our region’s most pressing climate challenges — while we still have this precious window of time to safeguard our future.

We also know that while every person is affected by the climate crisis, some communities and Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian people and other people of color bear a far higher burden from climate inaction. We can’t adequately or appropriately address climate change without addressing environmental justice and working closely with those most impacted by the complex problems facing the West. This is the cornerstone of our plan.

Together, let’s make a future that advances the needs of people in our communities; brings us clean, affordable energy; protects air, land, abundant wildlife, and flowing rivers and streams; and brings us outdoor access — sustaining the lives and livelihoods of people in the West.

Jon Goldin-Dubois, WRA President