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The latest United Nations climate report concludes that human-caused climate change is “a code red for humanity,” as the U.N. secretary general put it. That threat is visible in a slew of unprecedented events across the globe.
For many U.S. communities, the bleak predictions laid out in a new United Nations climate change report are more a reflection of the present and not just what’s to come.
The snapshot below presents infrastructure projects in cities around the nation pending public or private investment, most of which respond to years of deterioration and the need for enhanced climate and environmental resilience. Addressing these needs will also spur significant jobs creation across sectors, integrate the voices of historically marginalized communities in planning and focus financial flows for maximum community and social benefit.
A county in Washington state has become the first such jurisdiction in the US to ban new fossil fuel infrastructure, following a lengthy battle over the impact of oil refineries on the local community. In a vote on Tuesday night, Whatcom county’s council unanimously passed a measure that bans the construction of new refineries, coal-fired power plants and other fossil fuel-related infrastructure. The ordinance also places new restrictions on existing fossil fuel facilities, such as a requirement that any extra planet-heating gases emitted from any expansion be offset.
Cities are on the front lines of the growing physical risks associated with climate change. 1 They are home to more than half of the world’s people, and by 2050, that figure is projected to rise to 68 percent. 2 Urban areas are often located in places of particular climate risk, such as on coastlines, floodplains, and islands. Moreover, modern urban infrastructure and its operating systems are closely connected. A failure in one part of a network can affect another, multiplying the damage.
A lot of cities have ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But to achieve those goals, they first need to know exactly how much carbon pollution they produce now and where it comes from.
As part of a global effort to limit the extent of climate change and stave off its worst impacts, many nations, regional jurisdictions, and cities have set the goal of emitting zero net greenhouse gases by 2050. Getting there involves not just a major shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, but also managing the benefits and costs of this sweeping transition in a way that distributes them fairly.
Bobby Outten, a county manager in the Outer Banks, delivered two pieces of bad news at a recent public meeting. Avon, a town with a few hundred full-time residents, desperately needed at least $11 million to stop its main road from washing away. And to help pay for it, Dare County wanted to increase Avon’s property taxes, in some cases by almost 50 percent.
At least 48 U.S. cities are under-counting their carbon dioxide pollution by nearly 20%, according to a new study that compares local disclosures against a national database that can now estimate the same information. The new analysis could create confusion about how much cities emit—and therefore how much pollution they must cut—at a time of increased attention to climate change from the White House, state capitals, and city officials.
