Sophia Pascente
Climate Action plans are critical in the development of localized plans to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Since the impacts of climate change will be visualized upon local communities in the upcoming years, cities in the United States must develop more formalized local and regional plans that address these challenges. These localized plans are solutions and strategies based and target specific sectors and goals in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These climate action plans can be imposed at city or regional levels with specific action steps promoting change. However, they are not limited to just cities. State and national parks can set their own climate action plans that promote sustainability within their boundaries. These parks have been defined as ‘accessible, hands-on learning laboratories that help people understand the human/nature relationship and the challenges of developing a more sustainable society’. These parks have major inherent value, and as such, demand solutions that move towards carbon neutrality. Ultimately, these solutions are best presented in the form of a climate action plan with specific policy proposals in place to protect these institutions. Further, the process of these includes a myriad of steps that promote these goals. Some such steps include identifying regional and local climate risks and vulnerabilities, setting baseline greenhouse gas emissions, goal and target setting, presenting alternative policy options, identifying and screening mitigation actions, forecasting impacts of mitigation actions, and recommending strategies for implementation. Each of the aforementioned steps plays a unique role in the development of specific policies and plans to mitigate the effects of climate change at a localized level.
Sophia Pascente
It is common knowledge that climate change is considered one of the greatest challenges of our time. However, the way that federalism impacts the distribution of government powers, gives a great deal of authority to local communities to promote the change they see fit. As such, this gives a great deal of leeway to cities for the development of solutions. In the case of Detroit, policy analysts discovered they were one of the only major cities in the country that did not have a formal plan in place to address the impacts of climate change. Ultimately, they determined that the public health, infrastructure, and economic impacts this will have upon future generations is vast, and demands immediate action. Further, these climate action plans have extensive importance in their ability to combat environmental injustices on a community level. Given the grassroots level of contributions to this plan, the city is able to make special provisions for individuals disproportionately impacted by the harms of climate change. Ultimately, however, if these plans are not developed, there will be reverberating impacts upon local communities across the country. For example, city economies are inherently tied with their access to clean air, water, and land. Further, these impacts pervade the domain of public health. In Detroit, over 600 individuals die from air quality related illnesses each year. That being said, Climate Action Plans can serve as the solution to these problems. These plans integrate strides taken in technology, healthcare, manufacturing and urban planning industries to promote the most grounded and tailored solutions to the communities in discussion.
Sophia Pascente
The development of these plans integrate the voices of a wide domain of individuals. Most notably, are state and local level policymakers. Climate Action Plans are often done at the city level in order to stay in tune with the voices of the community whose actions the plans impact the most. These policymakers help in the development of plans that are politically viable and aggressive in their mitigation strategies. In the instance of Detroit, a multitude of stakeholders were introduced. However, one particular body of people stood out: the local residents. Detroit citizens got the opportunity to provide feedback on the plan and help input solutions, drastically helping them promote effective solutions that are supported by the broader community. That being said, a wide variety of alternative stakeholders play a role in the development of these plans. Other groups include industries and business institutions in public health. These industries help promote solutions that reduce GHG emissions and have positive impacts upon major industries within the city. Since these groups are the most in tune with the economic markets of the region, they are able to promote solutions that encourage economic growth, rather than stunt it. Beyond that, in Detroit, policymakers collaborated with the University of Michigan Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. This connection and collaboration with academia took a methodical approach towards the development of sustainable solutions and the evaluation of them. Further, in the case of Detroit, one of the biggest organizations involved in the development of this plan was the DCAC. This organization, the Detroit Climate Action Collaborative was built specifically to address climate change at a city policy level. These stakeholders all helped in the creation of the climate plan to improve city resilience, and have ties to the community in order to best promote it.
Sophia Pascente
Geographically, these plans are concentrated in a specific area. However, their impacts transcend a multitude of sectors. Most common are the inspection upon improving building efficiency and decarbonizing the energy sector. However, in order to best develop solutions, they must first do an inventory to assess the impacts of each of these emissions sources. Once the largest emitting domains are discovered, they can then be used to reduce emissions and identify places to improve their sustainability efforts. The city of Detroit's plan covered a myriad of different sectors, including buildings, transportation, solid waste, industrial emissions, wastewater emissions, and land use. Each of these must then come with comprehensive and specific plans to minimize emissions in that sector.
Looking at the example of Rock Park, Illinois, these solutions are broken down in an accessible and clear manner. With an emphasis on the transportation sector, specific solutions and plans were put in place to address and promote decarbonization. These plans include efficiency incentives, or providing incentives for park visitors to reduce their emissions. Further, they include the development of a master transportation plan that includes providing shuttles that connect cities to the park. These additionally include constructing bicycling infrastructure to make bicycling to and from the park an easily obtainable and accessible option. Finally, they include the improvement of education in transportation culture such as alternative transportation methods on the trails themselves. This would promote hiking, biking, and walking on the trail as additional measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While the report focuses on the transportation sector, it further provides solutions for more minute sources of emissions. It focuses on small scale solutions such as grilling, internal transportation, mowing, etc. This ultimately goes to show that solutions can be found in every source of emissions, and that no solution is too small when they are combined together to form a comprehensive plan.