City Government & Climate Policy

As their fellowship comes to an end, the Millennial Public Policy Fellows are using their final DM posts to reflect on their 11-month journey through D.C.’s think tank and public policy landscape. 

I began my fellowship at New America with a clear goal: dive deep into the issues plaguing  our nation’s electric infrastructure and obtain a concrete understanding of the energy policies that dictate the behavior of electric utilities. While I gained the knowledge that I sought to acquire through my work, I was surprised to see my interests not only broaden, but drastically pivot from my focus on the electricity sector’s role in mitigating climate change.

It wasn’t until I joined New America’s Resource Security Program that I was exposed to innovative city oriented platforms created to combat the effects of climate change. My previous work in the field of climate mitigation focused on research regarding macroeconomic approaches to lessening the effects of climate change. As an emerging energy policy analyst, I asked myself the following questions: What policies have successfully been implemented to curb the energy sector’s greenhouse gas emissions? What are the most promising low carbon and renewable energy technologies forecasted to be adopted by electric utilities on wide scale?

However, while assisting with research regarding the Resource Security’s Phase Zero Digital Toolbox, I began to understand the pivotal role of cities in building our nation’s resilience to climate change. Through digital tools such as web-based platforms driven by local data urban environments have the ability to identify climate related risks and invest in services and infrastructure necessary to mitigate the effects of climate change. For example, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Urban Climate Adaptation tool (UCAT) acts as a web based decision making tool by providing city planners with a Geographical Information System (GIS) map that identifies socioeconomic and infrastructure related risks based on a set of urban resilience indicators and data supplied by the city of Knoxville.

Beyond identifying risks, these tools can enhance eco-friendly civic engagement by prompting urbanites to change their behaviour towards more sustainable practices. In the Camden borough of London, a networked system of commonplace devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), is being tapped into by an energy analytics application to give consumers more information regarding their energy usage. Energyhive, as the application is called, allows for homeowners to track their energy consumption at the household level as well as for specific appliances. By providing real-time energy analytics to customers, Energyhive has the potential to decrease electricity demand through the reduction of energy waste.

Cities provide an avenue to implement innovative technologies that allow both local governments and citizens to play an active role in mitigating the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, the United States is currently experiencing a shift in its federal climate policy that places the interests of energy giants over those of its citizens. As the Trump administration haphazardly carries out strategies aimed at revitalizing the nation’s fossil fuel sector, cities will be at the forefront of counteracting such misguided policies. Already, consortiums of city leaders such as We Are Still In and the United States Climate Alliance have formed in order to signal to the world that, despite the current administration’s reluctance to commit to reducing carbon emissions. Americans are still invested in constraining the impacts of global climate change.

Regardless of the the Trump administration’s disregard for effective climate policy making, cities will continue to play a key role in how Americans procure and utilize resources in a sustainable manner. It is estimated that by 2050 as many as 66 percent of Americans will reside in cities, increasing pressures on city governments to efficiently utilize scarce resources. If the current trend of lackluster federal climate change policymaking continues into the future, local governments will have to ensure that the nation continues to prepare for the consequences of an altering climate while meeting the demands of growing populations.

The beauty of cities is that by rapidly deploying new technologies, they can act as innovative labs for tackling contemporary challenges. While technologies such as Energyhive may seem small in comparison to federal mechanisms meant to combat climate change, when swiftly adopted by cities on a large scale, the aggregated effect could mirror that of federal climate mitigation policies.

New America allowed me to explore my interests in climate adaptation and mitigation in an unexpected way. Learning about the different ways in which the confluence of technology, data, and civic engagement in cities are enhancing our nation’s resilience to climate change led me to the field of urban planning.

This fall, I’ll begin pursuing my masters degree in city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I hope to use the knowledge I’ve gained at New America to continue fighting for a sustainable future for all.