Regional Climate Event Explores Local Approaches to Mitigation, Adaptation

Public, private and non-profit leaders interested in climate issues met at MTC headquarters in Oakland on Tuesday to discuss what it would take for the Bay Area to meet California’s 2050 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels.  The workshop, sponsored by the Joint Policy Committee (JPC), included delegates from over 100 projects representing best practices and promising initiatives for addressing climate change in each of the Bay Area’s nine counties. The Bay Area JPC coordinates the planning efforts of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and MTC. 

“What we need to be thinking about is how do we take these projects to scale in our region and our state and our county,” explained Bruce Riordan of the JPC. The program encouraged participants to consider new collaborations and partnerships that would expand on local successes to advance shared objectives of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Keynote speaker Linda Rudolph of the Climate and Health Alliance emphasized that sustainable transportation projects have natural allies in the public health sector. “If we could shift from an average of four to 22 minutes of active transportation a day, we’d not only reduce GHGs by 14 percent, we’d reduce heart disease by 14 percent,” Rudolph stated. San Mateo County’s Health Department provides a good model, she said: They actively promote complete streets and affordable housing as public health priorities.  

 

And with respect to transit-oriented development, “the benefits are huge,” said fellow keynote speaker Sandi Galvez of the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative. Galvez said she was pleased that MTC planners will be studying models for incorporating health concerns into transportation and land-use planning as part of the next update to Plan Bay Area.

Other plans and ideas were explored during tabling sessions and interactive exercises. International climate expert Bill Collins of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory discussed his Climate Readiness Institute, which unites top researchers and local practitioners to develop localized climate change models. ABAG and BCDC presented jointly on their Bay Area Housing and Community Multiple Hazards Risk Assessment, which helps jurisdictions to safely manage housing growth in communities vulnerable to climate and seismic events. Marc Holmes of the San Francisco Bay Institute discussed research on the economic benefits of restoring the region’s tidal marshes, which prevent floods as effectively as levees and would cost half as much.

Ideas like these will be most effective if they can be linked into a networked regional climate program, Riordan said. Participants suggested a range of actions that would support such a program, from establishing a regional funding source for climate projects to collaborating with other regions on a robust national climate policy.