NRDC is pushing to expand clean energy development in ways that strengthen communities, protect nature, and deliver lasting economic benefits.

America needs to build clean energy faster—and build it right. Meeting the climate challenge means roughly quadrupling U.S. clean electricity generation and transmission capacity by 2040 while electrifying vehicles, buildings, and other sectors—without sacrificing communities, biodiversity, or critical ecosystems.

As part of NRDC’s Build Clean agenda, our experts are making the case for pairing environmental protection with a proactive commitment to building clean infrastructure, arguing that reforms must go deeper than permitting alone. We explain why clean energy’s economic advantages are not enough: Outdated infrastructure, grid-connection delays, and policy barriers demand modern systems, fair competition, and shared benefits. The agenda shows how early, meaningful community engagement, impact assessments, and agreements that deliver local benefits can improve projects and accelerate delivery. It also confronts the tension between expanding renewables and protecting wildlife, calling for development that avoids sensitive habitats, minimizes and mitigates unavoidable harm, restores habitat, and advances new protections for wild places.

The Build Clean vision charts a fast, fair, and effective transition that delivers affordable power, economic opportunity, healthier communities, thriving nature, and a more secure climate future.

NRDC’s chief program officer, Julie Cerqueira, walks us through the biggest climate challenges we face today and how NRDC plans to tackle them.

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