Read time: 10 mins By Dana Drugmand • Friday, December 11, 2020 - 03:00 The electric utility sector is largely lagging when it comes to responding to the climate emergency, both in terms of rapidly slashing globe-warming emissions and planning for climate impacts like increasingly extreme weather. This is according to two reports released last week on electric utilities and climate. One assessment by fossil fuel watchdog group, the Energy and Policy Institute (EPI), finds that many electric utilities are on a slow track to decarbonizing the electricity sector over the next decade and are still prioritizing fossil fuels over renewable energy. Another report published jointly by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University argues that electric utilities have a legal obligation to be planning for climate-related risks but finds that few utilities are doing this high-quality planning.