Climate Action Planning
How to prepare a climate action plan in nine easy steps
1) Assemble Your Team
Outreach to Policymakers
There are many ways you might initiate your task, depending on your circumstances and those of your community. If your community has a receptive mayor and assembly, you might start by arranging early meetings to get to know each other and to broach the subjects of climate and energy policy.
Relationships are key in politics.
Honor those you’re talking with; respect them by being punctual, considerate, and clear.
Know what message you want to get across: the size of group you represent, the urgency of climate and your expertise and availability.
Be aware that there are many different reasons various people prioritize climate action. As much as possible, help others see why climate change matters to their already-established values. For example, outdoorsy folks may respond well to discussions of how skiing and fishing is impacted. Hikers, hunters, and public safety officers may respond to wildfire trends. Some progressives may respond to environmental and extinction concerns. Some conservatives may respond well to national security and border security, along with a cost/benefit analysis. People of faith may be persuaded by a call to be stewards, caretakers of creation. As much as possible, know your audience and tailor your message accordingly.
Consider bringing with you a local expert in one of these areas, or become very conversant in the science of these topics beforehand. In Anchorage, when the mayor’s office was ready to begin the process of formulating a Climate Action Plan, the administration began by establishing a steering committee, an advisory committee, business advisers, and several working groups.
Our steering committee was made up of city staff and university faculty. They shaped the framework for the process, determining timetables, setting up the different boards and teams, crafting values for the volunteers to consider during the process, inviting participants to fill those roles, and composing standardized forms to encourage thorough consideration of feasibility and ramifications. They also hosted and guided the various meetings and edited the final plan.
Advisory Committee
Our advisory committee was a diverse group of people from the community, holding a wide variety of expertise. Several were from the business community. They reviewed and commented on the draft Climate Action Plan with an eye toward equity and economic prosperity.
We established seven working groups:
- Buildings and Energy
- Land Use and Transportation
- Consumption and Solid Waste
- Health and Emergency Preparedness
- Food Systems
- Urban Forest and Watersheds
- Outreach and Education
These are the working groups that came up with our specific action items and broader objectives for each category. By nature or by interest among the members, some of our groups focused more on adaptation (responding wisely to expected changes), while others focused more on mitigation (minimizing anticipated changes by reducing our carbon emissions).
In your efforts, you might choose to combine some of these working groups, remove others, or add new ones. There was some crossover, for example, when one group developed ideas more pertinent to another group. Generally, such ideas were passed along to the other group for inclusion in the final recommendations. University faculty led these groups, while the bulk of the groups were made up of city staff, state and federal employees, and members of non-profit organizations. It is ideal to have expert and highly-motivated membership of these groups.
2) Review Other Climate Action Plans
Many cities have implemented Climate Action Plans, so you needn’t reinvent the wheel. In fact, it’s most effective if you look at the cities that have most effectively achieved goals similar to yours. How did they achieve their emissions reductions?
Consider also the political situation (and stability) in your community and in the cities whose Climate Action Plans you are reviewing. Are they similar? If not, what adjustments will you need to make?
Anchorage
In Anchorage, our climate action plan seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. It was adopted without the force of law behind it, so its success hinges on long-term future efforts. Because our political leadership oscillates between left and right, it is important that we establish some aspects of the plan that can remain stable while leadership fluctuates.
A few items that could be long-lasting would include: Establishing a Green Bank to provide low interest loans for energy-saving and low-carbon work. Establishing stringent building code standards for energy efficiency. Embedding clear performance based goals and specific timelines into a local ordinance or statute.
Anchorage produced not only a 106-page Climate Action Plan, but also a 12-page Climate Action Strategy.
[Please forgive the mess, we are still editing below…]
Other cities’ Climate Action Plans are included below:
San Diego (legally binding)
Flagstaff
Portland
Oakland
Also compare the planks of the Climate Action Plans of six leading Democratic presidential candidates from February 2020.
3) Choose Your Goals
4) Determine your scope
5) Set goals for mitigation
Perhaps the simplest way to set a goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to define it as “doing our part” to honor the Paris Climate Agreement. That means reducing our emissions to keep global warming well below 2.0 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial times, and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. Consider setting a goal to do your part to limit warming to 1.5, 1.75, or 2.0 degrees C. To help you choose this goal, spend some time scrutinizing the scientific ramifications of various levels of warming. This interactive page brings the conclusions of 70 scientific studies together in one extremely convenient location to compare the implications of various levels of warming: 1.5 degrees C, 2.0 degrees C, and higher. We strongly encourage you to become familiar with that page.< As you consider which goal to pursue, consider also how quickly your community will be able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve a 1.5-degree goal requires a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (relative to 2010 emissions) by the year 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. Achieving a 2.0-degree goal requires a 25% reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2070. This is stated in the UN report “Global Warming of 1.5⁰C,” page 14, “Emission Pathways and System Transitions Consistent with 1.5C Global Warming.”
6) Gather Your Data
Determine your current energy usage. Local utilities should have records of how much electricity was generated from which sources. Try to find similar data for all sectors you’ve included in your scope (see “Choose Your Goals,” earlier). Ideally, obtain a few years of data, since weather and other factors can affect one year’s energy usage. Anchorage had prepared a couple of recent reports. One, by Deerstone Consulting in May 2017, was entitled, Anchorage Energy Landscape and Opportunities Analysis, and the other, Municipality of Anchorage Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory.
7) Convert energy into tons of carbon dioxide
In developing Anchorage’s Climate Action Plan, we determined how much each sector contributes to our overall greenhouse gas emissions.
8) Determine a Pathway
To achieve your overall scheduled reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, how quickly will each sector need to respond? How quickly will electricity need to “go green?” How quickly will cars need to have improved mileage, and how quickly will electric vehicles need to replace cars? How soon will building heat need to become electrified?
- 40% reduction by 2030, and
- 80% reduction by 2050.
9) Going Public
When you are well underway or nearly ready, you’ll want to make this public in an orderly way. Provide people with a sensible way to comment on, and contribute to, the climate action plan.
Municipality of Anchorage Climate Action Plan Promo Video
Chancellor Sandeen on UAA’s involvement in the Anchorage Climate Action Plan
