The first humans to inhabit what today is known as Ohio were hunter-gatherers who lived at least 13 thousand years ago. More recently, but prior to European colonization, Native American tribes including the Erie, Kickapoo, and Shawnee tribes called the state’s 41 thousand square miles home. Today, 11.9 million people live in Ohio, much of which is covered by the Appalachian Plateau, boasting terrain more rugged than the low-lying Great Lakes Plains of Ohio’s northern region.
Annual temperatures in Ohio have risen 1.5 degrees (F) over the last century, with a significant increase in both extreme precipitation events and severe droughts. The number of heavy downpours per year has increased steadily since 1950, and rainfall during the four wettest days of the year has increased about 35% in the last 50 years. Warmer waters also affect the water quality of Lake Erie, which 12 million people—and many Ohioans—depend on for drinking water. The decline in Lake Erie’s winter ice cover is already impacting the lake’s ecosystem. Algae blooms more readily both in warm water and after severe storms pollutants increase that run off from land into the lake. It got so bad in 2014, that an algae bloom in Lake Erie prompted the city of Toledo to ban drinking and cooking with tap water. In 2024, Ohio experienced a record high number of tornadoes, a historic drought, and 35 days above 90 degrees in Columbus, and in the first half of 2026, Ohio accrued between $2 and $5 billion in natural disaster costs, 10 times the state’s yearly average. Ohio also faces compounding factors that could heighten its climate impacts including deteriorating infrastructure, toxic sites from a legacy of industrial pollution (the state contains 37 US EPA Superfund sites), energy security and straining demand from data centers, and ongoing fossil fuel production and development.
Ohio is the seventh-largest electricity producer and fourth-largest electricity consumer in the nation. The majority of its electricity is generated from natural gas which exceeded coal for the first time in 2019. Ohio is one of the nation’s top ten natural gas producers and gas accounted for 59% of the state’s electricity in 2024. Coal generated 21% of the state’s power, down from 67% a decade earlier. Ohio is also one of the top ten coal-consuming states. The state’s two nuclear power plants produced 13% of its electricity. Renewables accounted for 6% of Ohio’s total electricity generation in 2024. Wind was 35% of renewables, solar was 56% of renewables, and the rest was hydropower and biomass.
In 2008, the Ohio General Assembly established the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) for Ohio-owned utilities and any competitive electrical seller in the state, mandating that these companies must source 12.5% of their portfolio from renewable resources. The passage of House Bill 6 in 2019 decreased that standard to 8.5%, an extremely disappointing development for those advocating for a transition to a renewable economy.
In September 2020, Ohio approved North America’s first freshwater offshore wind project — six wind turbines to be installed in Lake Erie — clearing a major hurdle. The farm was scheduled to be operational by 2022, but in December 2023 the project was put on hold as the Department of Energy revoked $37 million in federal funding.
According to the Nature Conservancy’s report on clean energy in Ohio, 77% of top employers in the state have renewable energy or GHG emissions reduction goals, with the average goal being a 72% renewable energy usage by 2040. However, the state's official path toward these targets became more complex after a law was signed in January 2023 redefining natural gas as “green energy,” making corporate clean energy progress more difficult to accurately track. Furthermore, progress remains heavily constrained by state regulatory systems; permitting assessments show Ohio is “where wind and solar projects go to die,” with the Buckeye State leading the nation in utility-scale wind and solar project application rejections and withdrawals.
Essentially there are none. According to the Ohio Climate Dashboard, which tracks climate action across different policy areas, Ohio still has not implemented any Just Transition plans, energy plans, zero-emission vehicle mandates, social cost of carbon calculations, environmental justice mapping tools, or climate advisory bodies, and does not have a cumulative impact assessment or a clean energy plan. The state has enacted interconnection standards, a renewable portfolio standard, and residential and commercial energy codes.
Recent updates include:
Through public pressure, training, and collective action, the Buckeye Environmental Network empowers organizers statewide to protect Ohio’s public forests, environment, and communities, focusing on stopping plastic-burning facilities, halting the spread of toxic radioactive oilfield brine, and opposing fracking and CCS technologies.
Since Ohio began allowing oil and gas corporations to lease state lands, grassroots resistance has faced steep legal hurdles:
CREDIT: THECOLUMBUSDISPATCH
