Reflection: Reaching across gravel roads & political divides with rural climate solutions

Rural places and people are at the forefront of the national dialogue this election season. From Tim Walz’s stories of growing up in rural Nebraska and living in southern Minnesota to JD Vance’s emphasis on his Appalachian roots in Hillbilly Elegy, both parties increasingly recognize rural America’s key role in the nation’s cultural mindset. 

Engagement with rural communities will also determine our success in meeting the great challenge our country faces with the clean energy transition.

Rural America will make or break our ability to reach our country’s climate goals. A disproportionate amount of climate pollution is produced in small town America, and rural communities face sobering impacts from climate pollution. According to a report released this year by the Rural Climate Partnership, rural America produces at least 36 percent of U.S. emissions, despite being home to only 18 percent of the U.S. population. 

To put rural America’s emissions into perspective, this is about three times the total emissions from Canada or almost equal to the total emissions from Russia. 

However, it doesn’t mean rural Americans are to blame, nor should we resort to harmful, inaccurate stereotypes about them. The energy, food, and industrial goods produced by hardworking rural people are largely consumed in urban areas. With fewer economic alternatives and limited investments made in better production methods, high-emitting practices have become the norm, leaving small towns to deal with localized air pollution, poor water quality, and soil degradation. 

Rural communities, with their close economic ties to the land, are increasingly vulnerable to climate impacts like droughts, heatwaves, fires, and floods. They experience these impacts in the broader context of economic hardship and systemic neglect. Rural counties represent 86 percent of all counties that face persistent poverty. These communities also saddle higher household energy costs – 25 percent higher, on average, than their urban counterparts.

Yet small-town America holds tremendous potential to affect change in ways that can reduce rural emissions while strengthening community resilience and creating economic prosperity. To achieve this potential, rural communities need to be in the driver’s seat. 

While national and state policy is important, critical decisions for climate action are being made by those serving on county planning commissions, city councils, rural electric cooperative boards, and small municipal utility boards. 

For example, nearly half of all U.S. electric power emissions are produced in rural places, and 60% of coal power generation is produced in rural areas. Through local advocacy and organizing, rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities can close polluting power plants and invest in beneficial clean energy projects that create new local jobs. 

Rural-led groups like the Northern Plains Resource Council in Montana and Renew Missouri are working to bring more local voices into energy decisions to advocate for clean energy projects that simultaneously create jobs, improve reliability, and reduce harmful pollution.

Solutions from cities and perceived ‘coastal elites’ won’t–and don’t–work in small-town America. For example, an increasing number of rural counties are banning clean energy development, often driven by a reasonable skepticism towards developers after years of extraction from other outside interests. Like most people, rural people don’t appreciate when decisions are made without their input. 

Local decisions become even more complicated when fossil-fuel-backed organizations spread misinformation in rural communities. These bad actors understand too well that rural opinions matter and use “astroturfing”—campaigns that feign to be grassroots—to block clean energy development. No amount of top-down prodding or factsheets from New York or San Francisco can correct this kind of deep-seated misinformation.

What does help counter and prevent misinformation is rural-led organizing, education, and advocacy with trusted, local messengers. Rural groups like Groundswell in Georgia and the Center for Rural Affairs in Iowa lead grassroots campaigns to help their communities learn about clean energy and make up their own minds about how they want to power their futures. They educate neighbors about clean energy options and share lessons learned from successful projects in other communities.

No matter the election outcome, ongoing support is needed for place-based, rural-led climate efforts. Clean energy, regenerative agriculture, household electrification, and other climate solutions require boots on the ground.

Done right, rural America can reduce emissions while simultaneously preserving rural ways of life, protecting vital working landscapes, and creating quality local jobs. The result is a cleaner, safer, more resilient way of life for all Americans.

Maria Doerr is a Program Officer for the Rural Climate Partnership