MARCH 2019
Across the country and, indeed, the world, youth-led movements focused on supporting and leading climate action initiatives are growing. As students in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom ask their country’s leaders to address climate change through policy and planning (including through an international school climate strike planned for March 15th), groups of youth in the United States are working towards a similar goal. A group of youth is even going so far as to challenge the government’s standing on climate change in the courts, arguing that by allowing climate change to continue at the current pace, the U.S. government is threatening their and future generations’ rights to ‘life, liberty, and property.’ As these youth movements gain attention on the national front, we’ve witnessed the power of involving youth in climate action planning and work at a local level as well.
Continue reading to learn about how the City of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, made the involvement and voices of the community’s youth a cornerstone of their aggressive climate action plan, which calls for net zero emissions from the community by 2040. You can also hear directly from a young person passionate about climate change, as our blog post this month was written by Maggie Zeh, a senior at Rock Canyon High School. Maggie is interested in pursuing a career in sustainability and is shadowing Lotus as part of her senior career exploration studies. Finally, take a look at some of the most compelling climate and policy-related news stories that we’ve been following on the local, national, and international stage.
We always appreciate your feedback, and the opportunity to support your work on climate action and sustainability. Please reach out to us with questions or comments.
St. Louis Park Makes Youth Involvement a Focus of the City’s Aspirational Climate Action Plan
The City of St. Louis Park, just outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota, boasts one of the most aggressive climate action goals in local governments: the City aims to be a carbon neutral community by 2040. The community’s climate action plan, completed and adopted by City Council in early 2018, included significant involvement from youth in the community that are passionate about climate change. The core stakeholder group for the plan, which included 10 youth representatives, ensured that youth concerns were heard and addressed during plan development. This was done by working with both iMatter, a Minnesota-based and youth-led organization that works on climate action, and Roots & Shoots, the local environmental club from St. Louis Park High School. Additionally, the plan calls for continual involvement from youth groups like iMatter and Roots and Shoots to ensure that young people in the community remain engaged and their voices and concerns continue to be heard throughout the implementation of the City’s sustainability initiatives.
St. Louis Park has a Council-appointed, resident-led Environment and Sustainability Commission that meets monthly to support the City’s overall sustainability efforts and provide direction and guidance on opportunities to involve the community in this work. Of the Commission’s 13 members representing each ward in the City, two members are youth representatives. In this way St. Louis Park is illustrating that the City recognizes that continual and active involvement of youth is crucial to the success of the City’s climate action policies. Additionally, through the youth members of the Environment and Sustainability Commission, St. Louis Park is able to leverage additional resources in communicating the City’s sustainability vision to all members of the community, including through engaging the community at youth-focused events and using the ever-present tool of social media.
The leadership and community in St. Louis Park acknowledged that climate change has the potential to drastically impact the world which young people will inherit, and had the wisdom to recognize the power of youth voices and engagement in climate action. This sets an excellent example of the expanded reach that community’s can have in their climate action policies and programs.
Lotus Blog: More than the ‘iGen’—Parts 1 and 2
The involvement of young people in climate change activism has grown rapidly in the past few years, and groups of passionate and informed youth are driving local conversation about climate action policies. These youth groups make a compelling argument—our failure as a society to address climate change ensures a less stable, more hazardous, and more economically insecure future for their generations and those that come after. Our most recent blog posts, which can be found in two quick reads, was written by Maggie Zeh, a senior at Rock Canyon High School who is working with Lotus as part of her senior career exploration coursework. Maggie is passionate about the environment and interested in pursuing a career in sustainability.
Hear what one young person has to say about why her generation cares about climate change.
Inspiring or Noteworthy News
News stories about climate policy, opportunities to improve and invest in technologies to reduce emissions, and how the public sector is responding have been abundant in the early part of 2019. If you have an interesting article that you think is worth sharing, please send it to us and we may include it in a future newsletter.
LOCAL NEWS
Boulder may have some of the highest concentrations of certain air quality contaminants.
Two Colorado co-operative utilities considering partnership to reduce coal and increase renewables.
City and County of Denver receive $2.5M from American Cities Climate Challenge to help combat impacts from climate change.
Unsatisfied by rising rates and limited by renewable options , some Colorado electric co-operatives are looking for new options.
Governor Polis announced an executive order aimed at supporting and expanding the adoption and development of infrastructure for vehicle electrification.
Colorado ski areas and the ski industry in general are focusing on their relationships with utilities and regulators to address their climate action goals.
Uber and RTD partner in Denver to provide mobility as a service.
House Bill 17-1339 is designed to issue low-cost bonds to help utilities close coal plants and cover the transition.
Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission asserted its jurisdiction over the dispute between Tri-State Generation and Transmission and Delta-Montrose Electric Authority.
Several of Colorado’s rural electric co-operatives have announced clean energy goals.
NATIONAL NEWS
Clean energy policies and support is gaining political common ground as the economic and environmental benefits of these projects become more appealing.
A Virginia County is debuting a small autonomous shuttle that will travel through the commercial districts.
The House Energy and Commerce committee will focus its first hearings of 2019 on climate change, which hasn’t been discussed at length by the committee in several years.
America’s carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4 percent in 2018, the biggest increase in eight years.
Cities are rethinking the way they address transportation and mobility, and Pittsburgh’s goals are a reflection of this.
Oil companies are starting to support carbon taxing policies.
Freshman democrats in Congress are pushing for a Green New Deal. Thomas Friedman argues that it is a strategy for American national security, national resilience, and natural economic leadership.
The Governor of Pennsylvania has announced the state’s first carbon emissions reduction targets.
Researchers at the University of Arizona have mapped changes in snow mass in Western states since 1982 at a detailed scale and found that some areas have had a decline in maximum snow mass of 41%.
U.S. air travel is on the rise, which means more emissions in the transportation sector; many U.S. based airlines are not addressing climate mitigation to the degree that airlines in the EU are.
GM is moving thousands of engineers from working on internal combustion engines to electric and autonomous vehicles, with a focus on the Chinese market and sports utility vehicles.
The National Renewable Energy Lab and the Clean Energy States Alliance release a report on the design and implementation of community solar gardens for low-to-moderate income customers, which provides useful insight for project and program developers. The report draws on Lotus’s work with the Colorado Energy Office on the Low-Income Community Solar Demonstration Project.
Cities are (sometimes unintentionally) adopting regulations and laws that will support climate change efforts, tucked into measures related to housing and transportation.
The Department of Defense released a report that details the threats to U.S. military installations due to climate change impacts.
At least 6 GW of coal capacity is expected to be retired in the U.S. in 2019.
Los Angeles is abandoning three natural gas plants with plans to invest in more renewables.
Illinois is the latest state to join the U.S. Climate Alliance and commit to reduce carbon emissions in the coming years.
A recent poll from Yale and George Mason Universities shows that more Americans than ever are concerned about the impacts that climate change will have on their lives and the future.
Solar requirements on new homes are now being enforced in California, while other states grapple with the economic impacts and feasibility of such policies.
New Mexico’s governor moves to limit methane emissions from oil and gas development in the state and also reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030 (over a 2005 baseline) ‘as soon as practicable.’
Electric vehicles are dominating the conversation within the public sector.
The New York Times published an interesting interactive graphic that estimates what the emissions reduction impacts would be if the U.S. were to adopt similar climate change mitigation policies as some other states and nations have.
The recent polar vortex in the Midwest provided an opportunity to analyze the need for massive deployment of energy storage in order for a 100% renewable grid to withstand similar events in the future, according to an analysis by Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.
Of the 265 U.S. coal-fired power plants that monitor their groundwater impacts, 242 have reported unsafe levels of at least one pollutant from coal ash.
GLOBAL NEWS
Karachi, Pakistan, is developing a emissions-reducing clean Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system that will be powered by bio-methane from manure.
International ecologists and economists predict that all salt-water fish will go extinct by 2048 under the status quo.
Hydrogen fuel cell trains may soon be running throughout the United Kingdom.
Fiat Chrysler was indicted in an emissions scandal similar to Volkswagen’s DieselGate.
The EU has agreed to a ban on 10 single-use plastic products.
Scientists warn that oceans may be warming at a faster pace than previously expected.
The Guardian provides a great primer on the development and use of battery technology, which is crucial to a clean energy transition.
Researchers are exploring what types of carbon taxing policies are most attractive to citizens.
The Guardian highlights successful tactics from the ozone movement in the late 1980’s that may offer some guidance on how to gain momentum and support for action on climate change.
Carbon Brief details a year-in-review for climate data based on an analysis of temperature records, emissions reports, and other data from 2018.
TechCrunch offers three pieces of advice to regulators regarding how to approach the changing mobility and infrastructure system brought on by new technologies and innovations in transportation and mobility policy.
The Earth has experienced the 5 warmest years on record, all since 2014.
The UK is considering implementing a meat tax to curb GHG emissions.
Corporate clean energy buying surged in 2018.
The world’s largest offshore wind farm just started powering parts of the UK.
The European Union announced it will reduce emissions from new trucks and buses by 30% by 2030; investment in alternative fueling and charging infrastructure is needed in order for this goal to be reached.
Come See Lotus at the Green Spaces Coworking Space on April 23, 2019
Lotus’s Hillary Dobos will be joining Jerry Tinianow, Chief Sustainability Officer for the City and County of Denver, and others on a panel discussing "Sustainability and the Future of Your Industry" at Green Spaces Coworking Space on April 23rd from 6-7PM followed by a cocktail hour. If you are able to stop by, please say hello!
We always appreciate your feedback, and the opportunity to support your work on climate action and sustainability. Please reach out to us with questions or comments.