Jamez Staples

Staples can pinpoint the exact moment his fascination with the environment and the outdoors was sparked. He was in 5th grade, living in North Minneapolis, where Staples was born and raised, when he saw an edition of the Weekly Reader with polar explorer Will Steger on the cover. Inside was a story about the fellow Minnesotan’s hike across Antarctica. The next edition of the children’s magazine was about the ozone layer. Staples was hooked. He would go on to work in the recycling industry and learn how to install solar panels while completing his education in the Virgin Islands. He has since founded solar development company Renewable Energy Partners back in his hometown of North Minneapolis, where he works daily to develop the infrastructure needed to bring jobs and revenue from the emerging clean energy sector to the predominantly black and economically disadvantaged community. 

Part of that infrastructure includes a new clean-energy training center that will help local community members train for jobs in the clean-energy economy in their neighborhood. Currently, clean energy training centers are located in Greater Minnesota, requiring two-hour commutes each direction for North Minneapolis residents, Staples said. 

He wants to connect with other like minded leaders from Minnesota and elsewhere as part of MCEA’s delegation at COP26. 

“I want to discuss opportunities to help create and deliver the same types of programs and pathways to address climate change and poverty elsewhere and help bring in people who haven’t traditionally been engaged in the work at-large,” Staples said, adding:

“People who live in underserved communities everywhere should have the opportunity to participate in the development of this (clean energy) infrastructure and earn revenue.”

Their participation is critical to meet the challenge of the climate crisis, Staples says.  

“Just like they say you need every country on board, we need the poor people to subscribe to this too,” Staples said.

That can’t happen when people are struggling to put food on the table. Finding ways to connect them to jobs and other wealth opportunities rooted in the emerging clean energy economy can help reduce the long-standing inequities that exist across the globe, pull people out of poverty, and address climate change,” Staples said. 

“People do a lot of talking but we need doers, people who are going to step up to the plate with capital and the other resources necessary to assist in the process of making this happen.”