On Monday the Climate Action Plan Implementation subcommittee meets and they'll be talking a lot about trees.
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| Three days at TB Times; Washington Post on intensification from climate change |
In a different situation and approach, the committee might instead be analyzing the prospects for increased emissions, lead pollution, and particulates from commercial air flight at the airport. But the City is intensely swerving away from that topic.
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| If we are thinking about rail, why not air also? |
More generally, I really don't grasp the shape and plan of the committee. The accumulated agenda from a half-year now just don't look like any expression of a city that was moving in a determined fashion towards a goal. They are getting updates on projects or approaches from other agencies and entities, looking at City policies that are nice and all but affect emissions mainly on the margins. It's very temporizing and passive.
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| Slide to Committee from May 2022 |
By my count and including the October items, the committee has now looked at 52 separate policy strategy concepts. Of those six only were rated with "high potential" for reducing greenhouse pollution. And the subset of those with the City as lead agency was one only, and that has been punted a little.
- TL24 - Right-priced parking policy (deferred now to after the November election)
- TL08 - Increase bus service (Cherriots is lead)
- EN32 - Promote Energy Trust Incentives for all-electric new construction (Energy Trust is lead)
- EN30 and EN09 - Collaborate with PGE for Clean Energy community program (PGE)
- EN14 - Collaborate with PGE, NW Natural, Salem Electric et. al., for weatherization program
Whatever the committee is doing, it has strayed significantly from May's outline of 55 early concepts with "high potential" for reductions in pollution and with the City as lead.
Monday's agenda includes updates on policy actions under "natural resources" and "community":
- More open space (which is at odds sometimes with our need for the proximity that allows for short trips; open space too often enforces autoist distance between useful things and places) - Policy NR01
- More parks - Policy NR02
- Preserve and expand green space and parks - Policy NR03
- Better funding for tree preservation and planting - Policy NR07
- Adequate curb planting strips - Policy NR08
- More shade trees in parking lots - Policy NR09
- More tree canopy coverage - Policy NR10
- Amend tree code for better big tree protection - considered completed - Policy NR12
- Raise awareness about trees - Policy NR12
- Promote water conservation - Policy NR20
- Statewide Planning Goal 5 inventory - underway - Policy NR23
- Allow gardens on private property - Policy FD04 (What is this one? This is just padding, right? We already do this. There is no change envisioned by this policy.)
- Work with Tribes - Policy CM20
- Collaborate with Tribes on trauma over displacement - Policy CM21
- Collaborate with Tribes on traditional celebrations - Policy CM22
Mostly these are all things we should just be doing normally anyway, and do not represent specific climate action to reduce emissions. In some instances the City is only a passive observer of what other entities are doing.
None of them are exactly wrong, though we should be thinking more critically about slogans and decisions for "open space," but also none of them rate "high" in potential for greenhouse gas reduction. Most of them rate "low," and a few rate "medium."
This list is more than a little anodyne and evades much direct engagement with the urgent need to reduce emissions. It's too much a review of our business as usual.
Maybe the new City Manager, with a new Mayor and new Council, will in January be able to dig in a little more and craft a stronger work plan for 2023.
The committee meets on Monday the 3rd at 10am.
3 comments:
Interesting that you seem to prefer the Latin plural of 'agendum.' Had to look this up. I learned something. Thanks. ;-)
I look forward to our new Mayor appointing a new Committee that will insist on aggressive climate action. We'll see.
I watched the video on YouTube of the committee's meeting on 10/3 and came away with a different impression (compared to the post): that staff and the council are taking this seriously and working on many fronts toward implementing strategies.
Of the initial 55 strategies:
6 strategies completed (mostly code amendments - 4 Salem code and 1 state building code) but also a telecommuting and flexible work policies by the city.
25 strategies are in-process or ongoing
7 that are pending or planned
17 strategies that haven't yet been started, but actually as the discussed them many of them have had initial conversations or something that had work done (Less formally)
(outside the initial 55, there's 1 strategy that was completed and 4 more underway)
So people...if you want to know what the city is doing, its worthwhile to actually listen to the presentation and discussion.
You have missed the point. The City is making progress on "policies that are nice and all but affect emissions mainly on the margins," mainly on policies with "low potential" for reductions.
They are not making much progress on policies with "high potential" for reducing carbon pollution. What you point to is instead substituting quantity (count of policy actions) for quality (amount of carbon pollution reduced in actions with "high potential").
Also, the City is not the lead on them. For example, EN18, for code changes, is largely completed. A central part of that is "Amend code to allow cluster and cottage developments in single-family areas." But that was driven by HB 2001 and not anything the City is leading on.
The criticism here isn't that the City is doing nothing. The criticism is that the City is not focusing on items for which they are the lead and items that have a high potential for reducing carbon pollution.
(And the airport. The City should be analyzing carbon pollution from airport expansion. We'll touch on that in Monday's Council agenda.)
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