When it comes to examining clean energy opportunities for the Midwest, governors are joining together to chart a new course of action.

This month, Midwestern governors convened in Detroit to discuss individual state strategies as well as regional collaborative efforts to create more jobs in the new energy economy.

The two-day conference—led by Joyce-funded Midwestern Governors Association (MGA), which brings together Midwestern governors to work cooperatively on public policy issues—focused on how states can attract clean energy jobs to the Midwest and make these jobs a sustainable part of the region’s economic future.

As part of the summit, the governors, chaired by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, signed the Jobs Platform and an Energy Infrastructure Accord. The accord includes policy and investment measures to help states, businesses, and communities across the region attract and retain jobs and also build a clean energy infrastructure in order to reduce the Midwest’s environmental footprint.

Midwest is uniquely positioned to become a national leader in the promotion of both green technologies and clean energy jobs with a burgeoning biofuels industry; a manufacturing base that can produce renewable energy infrastructure such as wind turbines and solar panels; and significant underground storage potential for carbon captured from factories and power plants.

A key focus of the effort is an emphasis on quality jobs. The governors are looking to target the creation and retention of jobs that provide opportunities for worker skill improvement and career advancement; that support middle-class families; and that address projected future labor force needs for new energy industry sectors.

The Midwest region has thousands of skilled workers who are poised to begin manufacturing products for the green economy. And hundreds of Midwestern inventors and entrepreneurs, designers, architects, engineers and builders are hard at work designing and bringing to market a broad range of technologies needed to propel the transition to the world’s low-carbon energy future.

In addition, the governors unveiled the Midwestern Energy Roadmap, a follow-up to the Energy Security and Climate Stewardship Platform document the governors signed in 2007. The Roadmap incorporates future energy planning and climate stewardship targets in four key areas, including:

• Energy efficiency
• Renewable electricity and advance coal with carbon capture
• Biofuels and transportation
• Designing a market-based system that places a limit on greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere

"Midwestern governors continue to look for tangible, realistic ways to create more jobs in the region," said Jesse Heier, Washington director of the MGA. "This summit provided an excellent opportunity for the governors to work with leaders from business, government and nonprofit sectors to revive our region’s economy."

Find out more about Environment programs funded by the Joyce Foundation by clicking here.

Find out more about Employment programs funded by the Joyce Foundation by clicking here.