A Novel Approach To City Climate Action Planning
/“To create an effective and reliable City Climate Action Plan, we need to look at a bigger picture solution. The GHG sources that a City can control or influence, can be relied upon to meet a City’s GHG emission reduction Targets, and in turn, should be the focus of the City’s Decarbonization Plan.”
– Vicky Keramida, Ph.D.
City Climate Action Planning is a critical component in the efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change globally and locally in communities and urban areas. Over 60 cities across the U.S. have applied for and received federal money in Community Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) from the US EPA to develop a City Climate Action Plan. These cities are now in the beginning stages of drafting their Climate Action Plan (CAP).
The following approach that KERAMIDA has developed, gives cities clear and easy-to-follow guidance for creating an effective Climate Action Plan (CAP) by addressing the GHG sources a City has control over or can influence for the purpose of setting reduction Targets. It is critical for a City to actively engage its businesses and industries during the development of a Climate Action Plan, given that they are significant contributors to a City’s carbon footprint. Together, the City and its commercial sector can find creative and mutually beneficial ways to ensure the City’s reliance on the Climate Transition Plans of its businesses and industries. The success of a City’s Climate Action Plan depends on whether the City has the authority to control the implementation and outcome of the Plan’s mitigation actions, and, therefore, to control or at a minimum rely upon the path toward meeting its Targets.
The “What” & “How” of a City Climate Action Plan
An effective City Climate Action Plan has to address both WHAT a City wants to accomplish to reduce its carbon footprint (KPIs) and HOW it will accomplish the reduction Targets set in its Climate Action Plan.
Best practices have shown that the only way to achieve one’s targets is to focus on the actions that one can control, or at the very least, positively influence. This is at the heart of the HOW question in a City Climate Action Plan.
In general, for a City to reduce its carbon footprint, it must rely on reducing the Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emitted by the various sources of GHG emissions. Considering what authority a City has over these sources is part of the process a City should adopt as it determines the HOW in its Climate Action Plan.
A City’s Decarbonization Plan should focus on GHG sources that a City can control or depend on.
The most effective approach to a City’s Climate Action Plan is to focus its reduction Targets on GHG sources that the City has power over or can at least influence. The fundamental categories of a City’s GHG emissions sources are listed below in order of importance, based on the probability of success for a City’s GHG emissions reduction implementation strategies:
City Operation and Assets
Businesses and Industries
Residential Sector
The order of importance prioritizes the segments a City controls or can rely upon for the successful outcome of GHG Emissions Reduction Planning, in the shorter and longer terms of implementation.
If a City expects to meet the Targets for GHG emission reductions as stated in its Climate Action Plan, the City needs to know what GHG sources it can depend on to meet such GHG reduction Targets.
Emissions Sources: Listed by probability of success for GHG reduction
1. City Operations and Assets
A City has control over its operations and assets. Therefore, it can develop and customize a GHG Emissions Reduction Plan to reduce GHG emissions for its own municipal operations and assets based on the City’s needs, technological feasibilities, any new policies required, and financial resources available. Provided that all these components are met, it can be assumed that the City has control over the outcome of its GHG Emissions Reduction Plan for its own operations and assets, and therefore, can depend on the expected GHG reductions from its own City sources to meet the City’s overall GHG reduction Targets. The implementation of this strategy is focused on the short-term and mid-term mitigation strategies of the Climate Action Plan.
2. Businesses and Industries
Businesses and industries have demands and incentives to reduce GHG emissions placed upon them by investors, customers, employees, and other stakeholders, as well as regulatory requirements by new laws for GHG Reporting and Decarbonization Plans such as California’s SB-253 and SB-261, or proposed regulations such as the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) reporting requirements for GHG.
In many cities, where there is a significant commercial presence, a City Climate Action Plan will look at the businesses and industries to help reduce the City’s overall carbon footprint through the commercial sector’s success in GHG reduction efforts.
Although the City does not control the Climate Transition Plan of businesses and industries, the City must strategically engage with businesses and industries given how critical they are to the success of a City’s Climate Action Plan and the implementation of its mitigation strategies.
A promising approach for engaging a City’s commercial sector is through the City’s Chamber of Commerce. Chambers are a gathering place for a City’s commercial sector and can serve as facilitators for a City’s engagement of businesses and industries for the development of the City Climate Action Plan. Chambers and their members understand the importance of combining economic growth with the enrichment of livable city conditions. This understanding is crucial in the development and implementation of a City’s Climate Action Plan.
Moreover, businesses and industries are often willing to provide resources to a City if their contributions of money and talent will make the City a more attractive place to live, which impacts the commercial sector’s success and ability to retain and attract talent.
While a City does not control a resident company’s Climate Transition Plan nor its conformance to the Plan’s metrics and Targets, the City has a vested interest in the Climate Transition Plans of its businesses and industries due to the City’s reliance on the success of these Plans, in order for the City to meet its own Climate Action Plan Targets.
A Chamber of Commerce may be a well-suited facilitator for supporting the City’s needs to ensure the Climate Transition Plans of its businesses and industries are appropriate and supportive of the City’s GHG reduction commitments. A critical function of a Chamber’s role may be to partner with the City in the development of applicable and appropriate mitigation strategies that the City may employ to achieve the GHG emissions reductions required by the City’s GHG reduction Targets.
3. Residential Sector
Although the Residential Sector is placed third on this list, it is actually the most important, given that a City would not exist without its residents. It is listed third, however, due to the lack of control any City has over the private choices of its residents and the challenges a City faces when implementing mandates of any type. A City generally has limited control over what its citizens may do in their private lives, which in turn lowers the probability of success of any mandate for GHG emissions reductions.
As a result, if a City were to rely on its residential sector to meet a Target for GHG reductions specified in the City Climate Action Plan, its lack of control over its residents’ conformance with that Target would make the City’s efforts to comply with its Climate Action Plan requirements problematic.
Therefore, the most important element a City Climate Action Plan should include regarding the Residential Sector is an education plan for its residents on the importance of Sustainability and Climate protection in their lives, with a focus on the education of youth through school classes for grades 1-12. The success of a City’s implementation of its Climate Action Plan relies heavily on its residents’ understanding and acceptance of the Plan’s requirements. Education is a prerequisite for both of these outcomes to be achieved.
KERAMIDA has assisted numerous cities in developing City Climate Action Plans. Please contact us or call (800) 508-8034 to speak with one of our Livable City Solutions consultants today.
Author
Vicky Keramida, Ph.D.
CEO & Chief Technical Officer
KERAMIDA Inc.
Contact Vicky at keramida@keramida.com
