Sharing Iowa’s story at COP28

By Mariannette Miller-Meeks

Last week, I was honored to share how Iowa is leading the country in renewable energy on the global stage at COP28 in Dubai.

COP, also known as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of the Parties, is held each year by the United Nations, barring extraordinary circumstances, and this year marked the 28th meeting.

This was my third year attending COP, and I was honored to travel with a bipartisan Congressional Delegation from the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I was honored to advocate for agriculture and American leadership in the clean energy space. As the Vice Chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus, I was also honored to attend COP and share ways that conservatives are pragmatically approaching solutions to climate by working to reduce emissions while keeping energy affordable and abundant and assuring energy security.

The central goal of COP is to bring together leaders from around the world to discuss goals and solutions focused on creating and leaving a cleaner, healthier planet for our children and grandchildren. There are meetings, panels, and exhibits dedicated to moving the conversation forward and creating strong climate policies based on everyday life.

At COP, I had the opportunity to speak at the U.S. Pavilion to discuss how our farmers across Iowa and the United States are the backbone of this country and our economy. I highlighted how Iowa is a leading producer of soybeans, corn, pork, and eggs in the United States, even while reducing fertilizer and pesticide use with adoption of sustainable regenerative Ag practices. Further, I mentioned how our farmers help fuel the world with lower carbon, cleaner emissions liquid fuels.

I had the opportunity to discuss how we have taken advantage of the geographic composition of our state to support the entire gamut of renewables, from wind to solar to ethanol, biodiesel, biomass, manure, and compressed renewable natural gas.

In Iowa, we can introduce innovative technologies like carbon capture and underground storage to our biofuel refineries. We’ve added hydropower at Lake Red Rock, and advanced nuclear energy is being revisited to provide capacity and dispatchable continual base load to the energy mix. We have the Ames Lab, one of the U.S. national labs, that adds to the exciting research conducted at the University of Iowa and Iowa State.

We have a story to tell, and I was honored to represent our district and our agricultural priorities at COP28, and I am excited to continue to tell the story about how Iowa is setting the example and creating systems to support and harness clean energy to secure a cleaner, healthier planet for generations to come.

Mariannette Miller-Meeks currently represents Iowa’s First District in the United States House of Representatives