Green A City

Carbon Reduction? How About Community Enrichment?

With all this talk and action around cutting carbon emissions by cities and states, there is a rare opportunity to impact the other side of the ledger: economic and community enrichment coming from healthier, more vibrant planning and living.

Portland, Oregon, featured in today's New York Times, for instance, was the first U.S. city to develop carbon-reduction goals in 1993. Today, the city has walkable neighborhoods, free public transportation, a booming economy, and one of the hottest local foods scenes outside pricey San Francisco Bay Area.

These strategies were based on the consideration, planning and execution of much more than just carbon reduction. Portland has preserved its open space, so farmland and vineyards are available nearby to supply all those farmers markets (thirteen in a town of 500,000, a significant amount) and trendy restaurants. As the Times article headlined: "Chefs flock to a City Where Food Is The Star, Produce is Stellar and Real Estate is Cheap".

Portland's carefull planning, neighborhood redevelopment and green building strategies are also reaping epic rewards in real estate valuation. The enigmatic Brewery Blocks of the city's Pearl District, only recently a dingy post-industrial  neighborhood, is now the most desired location in the Great Northwest for residents, local businesses owners and anyone who sets foot or rides a rail in town. A developer bought the Brewery Blocks in 1999 for $19.5 million and just sold three of the buildings in the blocks for $291.6 million to JP Morgan Asset Management.

Take a look at Denver, which spearheaded the nation's largest public transit ballot measure a few years back, before cutting carbon was de rigueur.

Now Denver is on the cusp of a jolt from its transit oriented development economic strategy. In the first year of light rail expansion, 2005, public transit ridership rates increased more than 10 percent. Businesses are thrilled to have opportunities to locate in high foot traffic areas with bikeways, walkways and events. Besides creating a more compelling destination for people or businesses that want to relocate, people get healthier walking more.

The city hopes to maintain such excitement over its ten year build out.

During this period, Denver is designing infill mixed-use housing to accompany the business, shopping and entertainment along transit lines. The end result is that the city's non-automotive access will make life more convenient and engaging for residents, businesses and tourists, while reducing local air pollution.

Oh, and the carbon outputs decrease.

Other cities of all sizes are chasing cleantech industry development. In this red-hot business sector, reduction means a very nice gain for regional economies. Unlike old industrial centers, cleantech has smaller scale nimble production; cleantech is built around intellectual capital more than massive production lines. It will also be more distributed to meet the needs of exploding demand in local markets for solar, green building, alternative fuels and advanced transportation.

Cleantech and carbon busting are creating economic development options that must be weighed and capitalized upon as local carbon reduction plans go into effect.

For instance in cleantech industry incubation, Austin and San Jose may have the early-mover advantage for massive scale, but other locales including Troy-Albany, New York (fuel cells); Seattle and Portland (biodiesel) ; Atlanta (green building technologies) are forging vital innovation centers. Other hubs and minihubs serving these massive potential markets will surely emerge. 

Finally, there is the tree planting part of carbon-reduction plans. Should this be part of an international or local program? International efforts will be critical, of course. But even more important to local community development will be deciding strategies for regional wildlife diversity and preservation, including parks and urban canopies. Trees can even be used to reduce heat gain in buildings. Properly placed shade trees can reduce building energy cooling costs by up to 50 percent a year.

As carbon-reduction plans get into the nitty gritty of fleets, energy sources, landfills, and buildings, communities must carefully consider how the very fabric of their lives can be improved through integrated sustainable planning, land use, and economic development. If your eyes glaze at the mention of those words, think instead eating, drinking, enjoying family and friends, recreating, shopping, working, preserving nature and enriching local culture--which of course is defined by local knowledge and ways of life.

Sounds like more a more tangible and interesting future than one guided solely by a carbon-reduction action plan model, doesn't it?   

Water on the brain: 4th Annual CA Climate Change Conference

By Ken Ott, Research Associate, SustainLane
Sustainability research, Government Division

I rode Amtrak to the 4th Annual California Climate Change Conference in the state capitol on Tuesday, September 11th. By doing so, I enjoyed nice views of the San Francisco Bay and farmland in between the two cities. I also read more about the event before arriving.

This was my first California Climate Change Conference and it was a nice refresher course, in addition to a source for reams of new information which I still haven't finished reading. The California Energy Commission and California Resources Agency put on this conference and are the state's primary policy and planning agencies for energy and natural resources, respectively.

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I'd like to share what I learned at the morning session on water in this post. Instead of merely reading about climate change issues, in contrast, it was great to speak with panelists and other attendees in person. Although magazines or online articles can be important resources, there is no substitute for conversation and one-to-one dialogue.

The morning panels focused on probable climate change impacts such as: water (flood risk and mitigation) and air quality (soot effects on snow melt rates). I was able to listen to and speak with a great number of people who are experts in their fields.

Some of them included Michael Dettinger, Scripps Institution of Oceanography who works on observing increased flood vulnerability, and Sam Earson, Desert Research Institute, who studies groundwater supply issues, using gas tracers. All of the panelists do good work and contribute to a greater  understanding of climate change issues as they affect the Western US as well as the global community. All of them are supported by state agencies or deparments and in turn report back to these bodies.

Below are synopses of most speakers' presentations with their respective conclusions as well as mine. If you are already knowledgeable in general you can skip my commentary and just read the indented text boxes. These contain much of my verbatim notes. You can also attend the sessions virtually. Sessions are archived in PDF and streaming audio/video for your convenience: Conference Home.

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CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER RESOURCES IN CALIFORNIA
Session Chair: Jamie Anderson (California Department of Water Resources)

The early morning sessions were well attended and very clear in assigning further certainty to likely extreme weather events in the future. The main culprit in all cases was a human induced warmer biosphere. 

“California Flood Risks in a Changing Climate”
Michael Dettinger of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography presented a model in which a global climate +3 degrees Celsius warmer leads to “flood friendly” conditions in California and along the entire West Coast. These conditions include increased winter snow melting and a stronger phenomenon of “Atmospheric Rivers.”

West coast more likely to get more rain
More rain than snow
Double area of rain --> double flooding
Additional winter melting: much wetter soils in northwest, slightly drier soils in CA --> but doesn't reduce flood risk
"atmospheric rivers" -- the storms to worry about. warm pacific storms.
"pineapple express" -- source of big storms/floods
More flood risk: rain rather than snow; wet snows & soils; more large storms; need to have better flood management through increase observation of snow, weather patterns...

Michael Dettinger gives his presentation. Click for larger photo.

Jerry Brown to California Cities: Curb Greenhouse Gases or I'll Sue You

California Attorney General Jerry Brown gave members of the California League of Cities convention yesterday in the state capital the threat of lawsuits if the state's 400+ cities don’t account for the greenhouse-gas producing activities related to their planning processes.

The former California governor and mayor of Oakland earlier this year in his new role as self-proclaimed "top cop," sued one hyper-growth California county for not calculating the impact of its extensive development plans on greenhouse gas production.

Brown used the state's groundbreaking 2006 AB 32 global warming mitigation legislation as precedent in a now-settled lawsuit against San Bernardino County. His office is compelling the county to inventory its total greenhouse gas emissions and to come up with a greenhouse gas reduction action plan for reducing emissions tied to new development, through a long-existing regulation known as the California Environmental Quality Act.

"We've got to adopt feasible measures to reduce greenhouse gasses through public processes--every city and county in California can do it," Brown told the gathering of hundreds of mayors and city managers. "I want to join with you to help. If you don't, I'll sue you. You have your roadmap, your threat, and the carrot of good things you'll achieve and bad things you'll avoid, so let's do it!"

The “bad things” he referred to that could be avoided included more smog and forest fires because of higher temperatures and broken levees because of increased flooding risks attributed to global climate change.

Brown, in his gruff San Francisco "Out-the-Mission" accent (which to this native Chicagoan always sounds more Chi-Town than anything), lauded Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger and the state's General Assembly for its far-reaching global climate change emission reduction targets.

"What California has done in adopting AB 32 is more comprehensive than the greenhouse gas reduction goals in any state and in some ways is more complete than anything accomplished by any nation."

Brown alluded to the California Environmental Quality Act being signed back in 1970 by then Governor Ronald Reagan and how last year Gov. Schwarzenegger signed AB 32 into law.

"A Republican signed the most far-reaching, invasive measure to make your life more difficult and now I'm the top cop to chase down people who emit greenhouse gasses," the long-time Democrat said, with a hint of irony.

The crowd of city officials, representing every political stripe, guffawed and cheered the former-seminary-student-turned career politician.

Bike Capital of the World?

We repost Warren's June 14th article from WorldChanging this week. -Editor

The Future of Carbon-Free Transport: Groningen, Netherlands

The future of carbon-free transport lives strong in Groningen. This Dutch city of 185,000 proves that bicycle transportation can reign supreme: people there make about 150,000 trips by bicycle every day.

Bicycles and pedestrians entirely rule the medieval-era city hub, cruising along on car-free dedicated pathways and short cuts with no traffic signals in some instances. But people also commute on bikes in large numbers from suburban housing spread out around the city to downtown jobs, via a ring-and-spoke network of paths. Overall, 37 percent of area commutes are made on bikes.

Boasting an official town bicycle planner, Groningen has created an infrastructure it refers to "continuous and integral," which includes massive surface and underground bicycle parking facilities, dedicated bike paths, and two-way bike lanes even on one-way auto streets.

Since the early 1980s, 30 city bicycle parking facilities have been developed, including one underground facility at the central train station that sells bikes, repairs bikes and offers valet and secure parking for more than 4,000 bikes. Parking is financed through a low-cost annual membership program that costs $50 a year, while bike valet positions create significant numbers of jobs at the public parking facilities and also at 15 local schools.

Bike parking and paths, however, are only the physical manifestation of the careful cycling cultural nourishment that has been provided by city leaders collaborating with citizens. In 1986 Groningen developed what is believed to be Europe’s first dedicated bike policy document, which focused on a broad spectrum of bike transportation and awareness programs. Educational programs now include teaching the health and economic benefits of cycling.

"We think we can boost the numbers of cyclists even higher," said bicycle planner Cor van der Klaauw on Josh Hart’s Car Free Blog. "We have programs to introduce new immigrants to cycling. Many of them came from places where the car is the ultimate status symbol. We need to show them that in Holland, they can get around very easily by bicycle, status symbols aside."

Groningen's bicycle planning has not occurred in a vacuum, but rather complements an integrated scheme that includes low-priced parking facilities for cars, strong public transport and careful public transit linkages between car parking areas and centers for employment and education. With these amenities, cars use, especially in the city center, was successfully restricted without impacting local business.

Other so-called northern European "cycling cities" may be more known (Amsterdam; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Ghent, Belgium) but none can match Groningen for its complete vision and high rate of daily velocipedic participation.

The Netherlands averages a 26 percent national cycling rate, Denmark scores just under 20 percent and Germany achieves about 10 percent, according to a report published by Dutch research group Fietsberaad (Number 7).

While bicycles in the US currently comprise only 0.4 percent of all commuter trips, some North American cities are actively promoting bicycle transportation--through planning dedicated mapped routes and facilities--as a way of reducing global climate change-causing carbon emissions. San Francisco, for instance, has announced a goal of having bicycle trips make up 10 percent of all city trips by 2010.

What’s behind the high rates in Europe, besides the history of bicycle use and culture? According to Fietsbaraad: "Accepting the cyclist as a 'normal' traffic participant with equal rights in the '50s and '60s has been a crucial factor; (so has) the realization of a motor car infrastructure (that) is not at the expense of the cyclist….”

Warren Karlenzig is Chief Strategy Officer at SustainLane, where he directs the company’s US city rankings, and SustainLane Government, an open-source best practices sustainability knowledgebase for state and local government officials and their constituents. Warren is lead author of the newly released How Green Is Your City? The SustainLane U.S. City Rankings (New Society Publishers). His blog is www.greenacity.com

Carbon Tools Scale up for City-Wide Footprinting

by Warren Karlenzig
Reposted from WorldChanging

While personal carbon calculators are turning into a dime-a-dozen offering across the web, the unveiling of Zerofootprint’s carbon counter at the C40 Climate Summit last week ushers in a new era of a large scale web-based data warehousing that can aggregate carbon emission information from city government, companies, universities, neighborhoods, groups or families. [Full disclosure: Zerofootprint provided offsets for the Worldchanging book tour in 2006.]

Toronto Mayor David Miller announced that his city would be using the tool, called Zerofootprint Toronto, to calculate carbon emissions for the city's 50,000 employees this July. The free tool will also be available to others in the city, so that it begins to build a “bottom-up” analysis of carbon emissions complementing the “top-down” analysis cities, counties and local government are currently engaged in with groups such as another Toronto-based non-profit, ICLEI.

The mayor said Torontoans will be able to use the Internet-based tool to calculate their own carbon footprint--which includes the amount of energy and water used, waste generated, how they get around, consumption habits and food choices. Results can then be aggregated and sliced and diced so that profiles of city, neighborhood to glean personal carbon footprints. Zerofootprint runs on a database architecture developed by billion-dollar software company Business Objects, said Zerofootprint founder and CEO Ron Dembo, so it can scale up to millions of users because of its enterprise software backend.

ICLEI, which has a membership of over 550 local governments worldwide, is also updating its limited-user circa 1990s carbon emissions software to a tool accessible on the web that can run local government carbon calculations and data reports. The international non-profit is working with Microsoft to release the software by the end of 2007, according to a Microsoft executive.

$5 Billion to Green International City Buildings

Former President Clinton announced this afternoon a program to finance the greening of existing government buildings in three large American cities and eight international cities as part of the C40 Global Climate Summit in New York.

"This $5 billion will more than double the global market for building retrofits," Clinton said at a mid-town Manhattan Waldorf-Astoria press conference with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and London Mayor Ken Livingstone. "We will reduce greenhouse gas emissions place by place, building by building and block by block. We know what to do (with the problem of greenhouse gas emssions), we just need to get organized and get after it."

I see the program as a well-needed way to systematically reduce global climate impacts of existing buildings--as I was quoted in the AP story above--while also addressing the issue of climate change adaptation for cities.

Antonio Villaraigosa, right, Mayor of Los Angeles speaks to John Street, center, Mayor of Philadelphia and Ken Livingstone, left, Mayor of London during the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in New York Wednesday, May 16, 2007.

Out of the 40 largest world cities, mayors from 32 showed up here to come up with financial and tactical strategies to combat global climate change. The event is being organized by the Clinton Foundation Global Climate Change initiative as well as the Partnerhsip for New York and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office.

"Unfortunately, it has fallen to the mayors to do it because at the federal level in this country and other countries, they seem to be tied up," Bloomberg said in statement.

U.S. cities that will benefit from the fund announced today at the conference include New York, Chicago and Houston. Companies funding the initiative include Citi, Deutsche Bank, ABN AMRO, JPMorgan Chase and UBS, which will each contribute $1 billion upfront to finance the $5 billion effort.

Sadhu Johnston, Commissioner of the Environment for the city of Chicago told me this morning, "We're already underway working this out with building managers and operators."

Los Angeles and Philadelphia, two cities that belong to the C40 group were noticeably absent from the announcement and are investigating ways in which they may participate, according to a Clinton Foundation official I spoke with. Other participating global cities include Rome; Delhi, India; Karachi, Pakistan; Seoul, South Korea; Bangkok, Thailand; Melbourne, Australia; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Johannesburg, South Africa.

When Clinton was asked if he liked working with mayors versus working with Congress or governors as president, he said: "Doing this is more satisfying. Mayors are in the business of doing. We're back in the solutions business." Clinton also weighed in on the promise of economic development for everything from biofuels, to electric engines as "long as oil is above $50 a barrel." And he touted distributed energy sources such as solar and wind power, particularly stressing the need for alternatives to a centralized electric grid in developing nations.

Honeywell, Johnson Control, Siemens and American Standard companies will be among the companies providing services ranging from implementing reflecting or white rooftops (a topic I blogged about the need for after California's epic July heat wave last summer) to more energy efficient sensor-controlled heating and cooling networks.

New York City's Small Carbon Footprint

New York released details of its carbon inventory Friday, and its emissions were just under one percent of the nation's, with about 2.7 percent of the national population of 300 million. That means the city emits only about one-third as much as the rest of the nation does on average, mostly because of its strong city and metro region public transit.

The Big Apple's mixed-use zoning, allowing businesses and residents and retail to occupy the same neighborhoods, also contributed to its low-carbon output, as people have no-carbon options besides public transit--you can actually walk or bike to get things done and to go punch the clock.

The new office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability (what an awesome moniker!) was the agency behind the inventory, and the city worked in conjunction with the organization Local Governments for Sustainability, or ICLEI, in what was described by Mayor Bloomberg as, "the most detailed inventory of greenhouse gas emissions in US history."

I might beg to differ considering the detailed greenhouse gas inventories Seattle and San Francisco have undertaken in the recent past, but it's surely the largest in US history because of the sheer size of NYC.

The inventory will serve as a benchmark for the 30 percent carbon emissions reduction goal by 2030 that Bloomberg announced in December.

Buildings produced 79 percent of the carbon emissions, which underscores the importance of green building measures in combatting global climate change.

Intergov Climate Change Report

The full story is out today from the latest release of the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and it aint pretty.

Seems the 2,500 international scientists that have been putting this report together for the past three years, were subject during the wee hours of the morning last night to supposed intimidation from government representatives from China, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

China's is the world's other big carbon pollution producer besides the United States, and Saudi Arabia and Russia have future economies tied almost exclusively to fossil fuel production. The charge of the scientists is that these representatives from these nations tried to water down the findings.

Besides stating "with high confidence" that human-caused global climate change is having significant effects on various aquatic and terrestrial global life forms, along with impacting human settlements and individuals, the policymaker summary report offered details such as:

• "The resilience of many ecosystems this century is likely to be exceeded by an unprecedented combination of climate change (and) associated disturbances (such as wildfires, floods, insects, heat waves, etc.)"
• "Coasts are exposed to increasing risks....the most vulnerable industries, settlements and societies are generally those in coastal and river flood plains..."  Take note New York, mid-Atlantic states, California, Hawaii, Florida and the Southeast.
• Warming in Western (North American) mountains is expected to cause decreased snowpack, more winter flooding and reduced summer flows, exacerbating competition for over-allocated water resources." This speaks most urgently to the Northwest, British Columbia, California, and the Southwest, much of which depend on year-round water supplies from melted snowpack.
• "Cities that currently experience heat waves are expected to be further challenged by an increased number, intensity and duration of heat waves during the course of this century with potential for adverse health impacts. The growing population of elderly is most at risk." Remember last summer's record heat wave in LA and the San Francisco area with some all time highs near 120 degrees? Or what about Chicago's 1995 epic heat wave that killed anywhere from 485 to 700 or more, many of them elderly? We must be better prepared for such future incidents through everything from building design and urban planning to energy management and crisis planning.
• "Adaptation will be necessary to address impacts resulting from the warming which is already unavoidable due to past emissions."

It's not all gloom and doom. The summary goes into solutions:

• "Sustainable development can reduce vulnerability to climate change by enhancing adaptive capacity and increasing resilience." Green building, renewable energy, energy efficiency, waste reduction, transit-oriented development, water conservation and increased local food supplies all come to mind.
• "Many impacts can be avoided, reduced or delayed by mitigation."
• "One way of increasing adaptive capacity is introducing consideration of climate change in development planning,  for example, including measures in land-use planning and infrastructure design."

Okay, try to have a great weekend now!

 

The Nicholas Stern Report: Live

Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the British Government's Stern Report on potential global climate change economic impacts, gave a presentation at University of California at Berkeley on Friday evening that implored government policymakers to act to reduce carbon emissions, and put the pressure on the public to urge their leaders to do so above all else.

The former chief economist of the World Bank, Stern is thought of by some economists as a traitor to his class by asserting that government has a responsibility to mitigate future climate change impacts  by addressing "the economics of risk" that climate change represents. (Conspiracy theorists shouting out from the audience, "It's all a hoax!" had to be dragged out.)

Most mainstream economists have tended to dismiss the so-called "externalities" such as pollution or carbon emissions cause from economic activity.

But Stern said, with a one percent worldwide investment in climate change mitigating technologies and development he is confident climate change can be turned back. Without such an "insurance policy," the Stern Report predicted damage to the global economy ranging from 5 to 14 or even 20 percent on an annual basis.

"The cost from deterring climate change impacts are less than the damages," he said. "Ignoring this stuff because it's in the future 30 to 40 years is what I refer to as pure time disruption--discriminating against people by their date of birth. It's like putting half the weight of a life born in 2010 versus one born in 1975."

"If we all wait for Holland to be underwater, it will be far too late to do anything about this." He gave a disturbing vision of a global temperature increase above 5 degrees Fahrenheit causing hordes to migrate en masse from the equatorial regions.

Besides the carbon dioxide-level analysis from the fourth Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change, Stern was clear on the message that reducing carbon can be an economic driver. "I'll put it crudely--you can be green and grow. This will be about doing things differently and continuing to grow."

"California with its 80 percent carbon reduction target by 2050 is in the right place," he told the rapt audience while giving a PowerPoint presentation of black and white text and graphs only, no cute photos.

And he said the world is now experiencing the effects of carbon emissions built up over the past 30 years, mostly from western nations, despite those that argue that all is in vain unless China takes action. "China is reforesting, not deforesting, it has has more fuel-efficient cars, and a five-year plan underway that is aimed at achieving a 20% reduction of energy."

His parting advice to the populace: "(Engaging in) the political process is absolutely fundamental. Eat less meat--that wastes a lot of energy. Insulate your houses better. Use public transit. They have a great new program encouraging free bike use in Paris. Buy carbon offsets."

Additional resources:

• Listen to a forum interview with UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources Professor Dan Kammen, among others, regarding the Stern Report. Nov 2006, KQED Radio.
• Sir Nicholas Stern in the news (Google News search)

Canada Green Review

We've just returned from the Energy Matters summit in Ontario, near Toronto, where a number of speakers from up north and across the pond gave food for thought at this unique event:

Peter Love, Ontario's chief conservation officer, and others from the province presented on its attempt to use a combination of renewables and more energy efficient ways of replacing 80 percent of its power grid by 2020. They've already:

• phased out coal-fired plants and now are developing aggressive energy efficiency programs across industry, government and residential buildings
• started implementing renewables (5% by 2007; 10% by 2010)
• have launched a "standard offer" program to have businesses sell clean power back to the grid
• sent out 800,000 smart meters to better regulate peak demand, during super hot days, for instance

Two congenial representatives of Sweden, Anders Franzen and Magnus Schonning, gave summaries of how that country has substantially reduced greenhouse gas emissions while increasing the nation's GDP. 

Sweden is using more local biomass for power, biofuels for transportation and district energy for municipal hot water supplies (Anders' city of Vaxjo, population 85,000, is almost 100% fossil-fuel free). Net result: greenhouse gas emissions in Sweden have decreased by 7 percent between 1990 and 2005 while economic output has increased 36 percent during the same period.

From the Canadian city of Markham, Bruce Ander, presented how district energy is reducing fossil fuel energy use in that city.

Wind powered light rail for public transportation in Calgary, Alberta, was the highlight of Dave Colquhoun's dog and pony show. The go-go economy of Calgary is taking taxes from the fast-growing local energy economy and is putting it back into something that will run clean and non-polluting in the form of its CTrain. 

In other big news from the north, Canada's federal government last week announced a $4,000 tax on SUVs combined with a credit for hybrids.

Some quick observations on Toronto: nice public transit system, however dated; cool curbside bike lock mechanisms and plenty of graceful street riders; stylish and large volume recycling/ non-recycling waste kiosks on street corners; nightlife and local businesses were bustling, even on a late Tuesday night. Runs With Kittens rocks!

Toronto downsides: locals say smog is getting worse; no pedestrian crosswalks despite the masses of people on foot at all hours; and poor interconnectedness with regional transit for outlying cities of Mississauga (population 650,000!!!) and Brampton (434,000).