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Following the death of Jimmy Carter, US president from 1977 to 1981, the flurry of obituaries highlighted not only his Nobel Prize-winning diplomacy but also his eco-credentials.

In stark contrast to the president-elect Donald Trump, Carter upheld green values and pioneered environmental policies decades before other world leaders grasped the urgency.

The former president, who died aged 100, famously installed thermal solar panels on the roof of the White House in 1979 – which were removed during renovations under the Reagan administration in the mid-1980s.

He enacted far more ambitious measures too, from his clean energy policies to conservation laws.

Here’s why Jimmy Carter will be remembered as America’s first green president and how his foresight still shapes climate discussions today.

‘The nation’s first comprehensive energy policy’

When Carter came to power in 1977, the world’s energy markets were still reeling from the 1973 oil embargo of the Arab-Israeli war.

They were delivered another blow in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution which caused a sudden collapse of crude oil production.

This chaos led Carter to ideate what biographer Jonathan Alter called “the nation’s first comprehensive energy policy”.

This progressive plan aimed to have 20 per cent of America’s energy coming from renewable sources by 2000 – an ambitious goal that has only recently been achieved.

The energy crisis also led to Carter’s iconic address to the nation in 1977, during which he donned a cardigan and urged Americans to turn down the heating to collectively reduce consumption.

The former president also founded the US Department of Energy, which undertakes cutting-edge research on sustainable fuels. The primary mission of one section is to advance nuclear power as a resource that could soon meet America’s energy needs.

Carter safeguarded vast swathes of Alaska

Carter also left his mark with his measures to protect Alaska from threats of oil and gas developments.

He designated 56 million acres of the state’s wilderness as federally protected lands – more than doubling the amount of land managed by the National Park Service, the US agency that manages all the country’s national parks and natural monuments.

Carter’s Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980 also enshrined hunting and fishing rights for rural Alaskans.

The late president self-proclaimed the act to be “one of the most exceptional pieces of conservation legislation enacted by our great nation or any nation”.

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Carter championed solar energy

During his time in the White House, Carter still pushed for the use of coal as an energy source, which some green critics have been quick to highlight upon his recent death.

However, damage to the environment by fossil fuels was not yet fully appreciated in the 1970s and 80s, and the former US leader saw it as a way to reduce reliance on imported oil.

But Carter also placed an emphasis on the expansion of solar power production. He described his 1978 solar strategy as “a challenge as important as exploring our first frontiers or building the greatest industrial society on Earth”.

His ambitious commitments included investing $1 billion (€96 million) in the development of renewable forms of energy in 1980 and proposing tax credits to accelerate advances in solar power.

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Later in his life, he continued to champion solar energy and oversaw the installation of thousands of photovoltaic panels in his hometown of Plains in Georgia.

These solar panels now generate 1.3 MW – enough energy for half the town’s inhabitants.

Carter’s forward-thinking vision for energy was already clear during his dedication ceremony for the thermal solar panels on the rooftops of the White House.

“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people,” he said.

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