Greenhoof

by Steve Nicholas

As the leaders, and eyes, of the world converge on
Copenhagen, questions are swirling like storm clouds. Will developed countries agree and commit to
a meaningful greenhouse gas emissions reduction target? Will Those Most Responsible pony up some
serious dough for a “Green Fund” to help those most affected develop clean
energy supplies and climate adaptation strategies? Will Sen. Inhofe (R-Okla.) challenge Al Gore to an
arm-wrestling match in the middle of Rådhuspladsen, the Danish capital’s
gorgeous City Hall Square?

Most important, will the 115 or so world leaders
gathered this week in the Danish capital come to some kind of substantive agreement,
or at least an agreement to agree in the not-too-distant future? Will anything come out of these talks other
than talk?

Climate leaders in cities and metropolitan areas
across the U.S. aren’t holding their breath. Sure, they’ve got one eye on Denmark, but the other is focused on a much
more local (and palpable) prize: Significantly reducing their own carbon
footprints—and working to create good, green jobs and a vibrant, low-carbon
economy along the way.

To these folks, “Climategate” is nothing more than the
predictable (and yet still quite annoying) chatter from the cheap seats. They know that climate change is real, not
because they’ve read about it in some report or science magazine, but because
they see it unfolding before their eyes, in the form of dwindling water
supplies, more frequent heat waves, overtaxed drainage systems, and a dizzying
(and frightening) array of other impacts already wreaking havoc on their people
and their economies. So they’re not
watching from the bleachers, sipping Carlsberg, and hoping for the best. They’re down on the field, advancing the ball
against fourth-and-long odds.

Take Kansas City, for
example, where the city government and its partners are busy creating a “Green
Impact Zone” aimed at transforming a blighted, 25-acre section of the community
into a model of sustainable, energy-efficient and equitable urban
redevelopment. The Zone is a distressed and historically underserved
150-block area within Kansas City’s urban core that’s been officially
designated for coordinated reinvestment and revitalization. The city is collaborating with the
Mid-America Regional Council, Kansas City Power & Light, the University of
Missouri, and a host of other nonprofit, business, and neighborhood
organizations; they are combining several different heretofore uncoordinated
streams of federal stimulus money to fund the project, which will include
weatherizing every home within the Zone that needs it, installing a smart grid
system, building a bus rapid transit network, and providing comprehensive job
training and placement services to unemployed people living within the Zone, so
that they can do much of the work generated by the project.

Portland’s Clean
Energy Works is another great example of an
innovative and integrated approach to increasing energy efficiency, saving
money, reducing climate pollution, and creating good, green jobs. Like many cities, Portland is ramping up its
efforts to significantly increase the energy efficiency of their residential
and commercial buildings, which nation-wide use about 70 percent of the electricity
load and produce more than 40 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. Using federal stimulus money as seed funding,
the City of Portland and its key partners—Multnomah County, Portland General
Electric, Shorebank Enterprise Cascadia, the Energy Trust of Oregon, and the
nonprofit Green for All—have established a revolving loan fund that will
provide low-interest loans to homeowners to finance energy efficiency audits
and measures such as new insulation or the installation of a high-efficiency
furnace or water heater. Participants
will pay off the loans over time, via their utility bills. The initial goal of the pilot program is to
retrofit 500 homes, but the longer-term target is 100,000. To ensure a coherent and equitable approach
to the job creation and workforce development elements of the program, the
Portland City Council recently approved a Community Workforce Agreement signed
by local businesses and labor unions. Among other things, the agreement requires that 80 percent of the workers come
from the local workforce, and that 30 percent are people of color, women, or low-income
residents.

Other cities are
experimenting with a different approach to helping property owners overcome one
of the major barriers to retrofitting their homes and businesses to increase
energy efficiency and save money: lack of funding for the up-front costs of
efficiency measures such as insulation and window replacement, even in cases
where the payback period is relatively short. Several cities are creating clean energy financing districts to help homeowners overcome that barrier. These programs give property owners an
opportunity to borrow money to increase the energy efficiency of their
buildings, or to install clean energy systems such as solar panels, and to
repay the loan over 20 years via their property tax bills. Property owners opt in voluntarily and pay
little if any up-front cost. And since
the energy improvement stays with the property, the tax obligation does as
well. This model, called Property Assessed
Clean Energy was first
piloted by the City of Berkeley to finance the installation of solar panels on
homes. Now it’s being replicated or
considered by many other cities across the country—from San Francisco, Calif. to
Annapolis, Md.—to finance energy efficiency as well as small renewable energy
retrofit projects.

Along with buildings,
transportation sources—cars, trucks, buses, and the like—are one of the top
two sources of climate pollution in most U.S. cities, and in the nation as a whole. Many metropolitan regions around the country
are working hard to shrink this segment of their carbon footprints, as well,
for example by shifting land-use policies and major infrastructure investments
to discourage sprawl and encourage the development of compact and relatively
climate-friendly urban communities, in which walking, biking, and public
transportation is easier, safer, and cheaper. The Sacramento Blueprint is one of the best examples. The six-county Sacramento Council of
Governments (SACOG) led an intensive, three-year process to develop the
Blueprint, using state-of-the-art GIS-based data analysis and mapping to help
the region visualize the myriad costs (economic, environmental, and social) of
sprawl and rally around a “smart growth” vision and strategy. The goal of the Blueprint, adopted by the
SACOG Board of Directors in 2004, is to reduce the amount of driving per
household by 8 percent compared to 2005 levels, which will translate into a
per-household reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of about 12 percent. And it appears to be working. Between 2004 and 2007, the number of multi-family
housing projects increased by more than 500 percent, while the number of single-family
houses on lots of 5,500 square feet or more decreased by more than 20 percent. The Blueprint has become a model for other
metropolitan areas, and inspired pioneering state legislation in California
that requires Metropolitan Planning Organizations to set greenhouse gas
emissions targets and develop a Sustainable Community Strategy to meet
them.

Atlanta is another example of
a fast-growing region that is making great strides to rein in sprawl and
develop more climate-friendly land-use and transportation systems. Just last year, the Atlanta City Council
unanimously approved Connect Atlanta, the city’s first comprehensive transportation
plan. The goal is nothing short of
transforming their historically highway-dominated transportation system,
designed mostly to facilitate the flow of motor vehicles between the city and
its suburbs, into a more diverse network of roads that also serves the mobility
needs of people within the city, for example by better-connecting the urban
core with the neighborhoods that surround it.
A series of seven community visioning workshops held throughout that
guided the development of Connect Atlanta which calls for downsizing some
streets so that they are more conducive to neighborhood quality-of-life,
building 200 miles of bike lanes, and adding 95 miles of rail and
high-frequency bus transit. The Livable
Cities Initiative, administered by the 10-county Atlanta Regional Commission,
promotes implementation of Connect Atlanta by providing community planning
grants and allocating federal transportation funding to redevelopment projects
that channel growth into the urban centers and away from undeveloped
areas.

Local leaders and
practitioners recognize that solving the global climate crisis will require not
just government action, but the ultimate team effort. So many cities and towns across the country
are coming up with creative, effective, and fun ways to engage their homeowners
and businesses in the climate challenge. The Energy Smackdown is a great example.
The brainchild of the Boston-based BrainShift Foundation, the Energy
Smackdown is a sort of green edition of the reality TV show “The Biggest
Loser.” It pits teams of households in
three Massachusetts communities (Arlington, Cambridge, and Medford) against each
other in a friendly competition to see which town can make the biggest energy
reduction over a 12-month period. Participants
get free advice from energy experts, including a comprehensive home energy and
lifestyle evaluation. Events include a
Light Bulb Challenge, a Smart Transit Challenge, and a “Locavore Banquet,” in
which the teams prepare and serve climate-friendly, full-course meals using
only locally sourced ingredients.

The 30 households
participating in the recently completed second season of Energy Smackdown
reduced their electricity use by an average of 14 percent. The top three households
reduced electricity usage  73 percent, 37 percent, and
28 percent over the 12 months. Local, regional,
and national media published or broadcast a total of 22 stories about the
Energy Smackdown, and a seven-part video series now in production will be
distributed via community access television as well as on the Internet. In addition to notoriety, cost savings, and
the warm feeling that comes from doing the right thing and inspiring neighbors
to do the same, the winners get great prizes provided by local businesses.

These are just a few of the climate innovations
underway in cities, towns, and metropolitan areas across America. Do we need a new international agreement that
commits nations to work together to solve the global climate crisis? No question. Do we need strong national climate protection policies and programs,
especially in high-emitting countries such as China, the U.S., and India? Absolutely. But local climate action is an essential ingredient, as well. Cities and towns consume two-thirds of the
world’s energy and produce more than 70 percent of its climate pollution, according to
the International Energy Agency. So it’s
easy to do the math: we don’t meet the global climate challenge without
creating dramatically more energy-efficient and less carbon-intensive
cities.

The good news is that a growing number of U.S. cities
get it; more than 1,000 mayors are participating in the U.S. Mayors Climate
Protection Agreement, initiated by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels back on Kyoto
Protocol enactment day (Feb. 15, 2005). They get that, while climate disruption is a global phenomenon, its
impacts are local. They get that local
solutions—from building codes that require more energy-efficient buildings to
land-use policies that increase reliance on public transportation, biking, and
walking—are not only readily available, but highly attractive on a many
levels. They get that the opportunities
for their communities are perhaps as great as the stakes are high.

So, while the ears of local climate practitioners may
be half-listening for a promising peep or two out of the Bella Center this
week, they’re keeping their noses exactly where they need to be: to the
grindstone. They aren’t waiting for hope—they’re creating it.

Spread the news on what the føck is going on in Copenhagen with friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, or smoke signals.

Related Links:

Two moves by the U.S. and China that could unlock the Copenhagen chess game

Copenhagen cops cast pall over the city

Naomi Klein on Climate Justice Action

Category: Green Tech, Tech Feed by Bryan