Climate + Energy
The future is clean. Let’s build it.
The transition is urgent—and possible. That’s the north star of Sightline’s Climate and Energy program, which is accelerating Cascadia’s shift to clean, reliable, and affordable electricity and advancing its resilience to a changing climate.
Our team delivers the policy ideas and analysis to help lawmakers and advocates chart a path to healthier homes and workplaces, cleaner air and water, and communities safer from wildfires.
Toward a brighter climate future, together.
Featured priorities
⚡️ Building a clean electric grid for a renewables-powered region, including removing the barriers to new transmission capacity
🏭 Phasing out gas in homes and buildings for healthier communities and ratepayer protections
🔥 Preparing for a more wildfire-risky future with smart strategies to protect people and reduce long-term dangers
Who’s polluting your local air?
180 sites account for a quarter of Cascadia’s carbon pollution, each emitting more than 100,000 metric tons of carbon annually. That’s despite the region’s noteworthy climate policy leadership; the loopholes and industry carve-outs are still massive.
But Cascadians have shown we want a cleaner future. Among other things, we fueled advocates with research and data for more than a decade to fend off dozens of coal, oil, and gas schemes targeting the region’s shores for export terminals, earning the region’s reputation: “where fossil fuel projects go to die.”
Learn more at: 180 Sites Account for a Quarter of Cascadia’s Carbon Pollution
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Hear directly from our Climate and Energy experts, including behind-the-scenes context and analysis (delivered approx. monthly).
SubscribeLatest research + analysis
How Cascadia Can Maintain Its Heat Pump Momentum
Three tools to help the region’s low-income families afford more efficient heating and cooling systems—even as public dollars dry up.
Latest articles
How Cascadia Can Maintain Its Heat Pump Momentum
Who Owns a Utility Matters Less for Climate Than the Rules They Play By
The 1,083-Page Environmental Assessment That Ignores Climate Change and Tribes
Meet the Team
Emily Moore
Director of Climate and Energy
Emily leads Sightline’s work transitioning Cascadia away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner energy sources.
Kelly Trumbull
Senior Researcher, Climate and Energy
Kelly’s research supports Cascadia’s transition away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner energy sources.
Ricardo Pelai
Researcher, Climate and Energy
Ricardo’s research focuses on accelerating Cascadia’s transition from fossil fuels to a future powered by abundant clean energy.
Laura Feinstein
Energy Policy Research Fellow
Laura is a fellow with Sightline Institute, focused on energy policy, particularly natural gas infrastructure and building decarbonization.
Our research in the news
Bill to protect residential electricity customers from subsidizing data center demand moves forward
Oregon Capital Chronicle
Groups rally against bill that would exempt Umatilla County from statewide nuclear ban
Oregon Capital Chronicle
Resources for Journalists
Our researchers can provide commentary, interviews, story ideas, background information, or serve as expert sources across our program areas. If we can’t comment on an issue ourselves, chances are we know someone who can.
Climate change is costing the Northwest big, causing suffocating wildfires, devastating droughts, and inhospitable marine ecosystems. But for more than a decade, Cascadian communities have stood as a bulwark against the fossil fuel industry’s aggressive schemes for dozens of coal, oil, and gas projects. Now, the region boasts some of the world’s most ambitious climate commitments and faces the urgent and enormous challenge of seeing them to fruition.
Sightline’s Climate and Energy program focuses on achieving that vision, including by building out vast amounts of clean energy infrastructure, retiring old and polluting energy systems, and transitioning millions of homes and businesses off of gas-fueled appliances and infrastructure—and doing all of this equitably and responsibly.
Learn more about our Climate + Energy research projects below.
Building Cascadia’s clean electric grid
Research and policy recommendations to remove the barriers to new electric transmission capacity in the Northwest.
Research and policy recommendations to prune the gas system, scale electrification, and protect ratepayers.
Myth-busting hydrogen and renewable natural gas
Research and policy recommendations to prune the gas system, scale electrification, and protect ratepayers.