JC to Host Historic Climate Action Plan Meeting: You’re Invited
Submitted By Amanda Novello, SJC Core Team Member
The United States federal government is currently working on formally exiting the United Nations Paris Agreement, the non-binding pledge to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions to slow the onset of climate catastrophe, which will make the U.S. the only industrialized country excluded from the agreement. Thankfully, US cities and states are acting differently, and are acknowledging that all governments, businesses, and individuals have a role to play in dealing with climate change.
The US Mayors for Climate coalition, representing 82 cities and 39 million Americans, was a pledge for cities to stick with the accord, and to take the steps needed to reduce emissions and improve resilience to climate change. Jersey City was one of those cities. Residents of the city know first hand just how important this is. Only seven years ago, Hurricane Sandy caused $50 million in damages and lost wages, and the potential for storms of equal or higher intensity is growing all the time.
When Jersey City joined the Mayors for Climate coalition in 2017, Mayor Fulop declared that the city “will continue to invest in green infrastructure, clean energy, expanded open space and innovative ways to reduce our carbon footprint." A year later, in 2018, Mayor Fulop took a more concrete step toward achieving these goals when he signed onto the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy. This committed the city to measuring its emissions, setting competitive emissions reduction targets, and creating an action plan for meeting those targets.
Fortunately, 2016 benchmarking data for the city was available so the JC Office of Sustainability, with assistance from Montclair State and ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability USA, was able to produce a report to document Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in Jersey City. The report will be used to inform the public, and to provide a baseline for next steps toward creating Jersey City’s Climate Action Plan, which is intended to be finalized next Spring, and which will be the subject of the November 7th public meeting at City Hall.
The next step for Jersey City is to set targets to reduce emissions, and to create a plan with concrete milestones toward achieving those targets. For those interested in participating in the next phase of developing Jersey City’s Climate Action Plan, there will be four Working Groups forming that will meet monthly over the next four months and which will address the following topics - Energy, Transportation & Land Use, Waste Streams, and Equity. There is an application process to participate and you can submit your interest to do so here.
Points of Discussion for the November 7th Climate Action Plan Meeting
What follows can serve as a primer on the topics in the GHG Inventory Report and some related ideas to reduce emissions which will hopefully be addressed in the November 7th meeting and subsequent working group planning sessions.
The main sources of climate pollution, as identified in the recently published GHG Inventory Report (2016 data) is Commercial Energy from commercial buildings and multi-family high-rises (42% of 2016 city-wide emissions), Transportation including all private and public vehicles (30%), and Residential Energy, or 1 - 4 family housing (16%), and Waste, Landfill and Wastewater (3%)
Commercial Energy: Looking around, it’s no surprise that Jersey City’s biggest source of pollution are it’s most dominant feature: commercial buildings. Electricity used to power our commercial buildings produced 500,000 metric tons of CO2 (out of 2.9 million metric tons, total, in the city). In addition to Electricity use, Natural Gas and Fuel Oils were also significant inputs into commercial building energy emissions production. Steps taken to reduce emissions from commercial building energy could include:
a) Energy Efficiency - provisions to require that buildings use less energy including building retrofits for old buildings, or LEED certification requirements for all new buildings.
b) Renewable Energy - encourage buildings to use electric power that comes from renewable energy sources like solar and wind by requiring buildings to generate a minimum percentage of their own electricity, or a city-wide plan to boost renewable energy generation. (See Stevens Institute JC Sustainability Report for other ideas on how to expand renewable energy, including community solar programs.)
c) Emissions Targets - require each building to meet an emissions reduction target, eg. each building must reduce their CO2 emissions by 50% by 2025, with predetermined enforcement measures in the case that targets are not met.
Similar and complementary actions could be taken to curb emissions in Residential Buildings / 1-4 Family Homes.
Transportation: Jersey City was recently listed as one of the worst places to drive in the whole country, based on factors that included per capita traffic and congestion statistics. Fuel-combustion cars are among the least environmentally friendly forms of transportation, and Jersey City has a lot of them. In fact, “gas powered passenger transit” - AKA cars - were the leading source of transit sector emissions here (producing 680,000 metric tons of CO2 in 2016) - nearly 7 times the next highest source, which was diesel freight.
Thankfully, the city has benefited from federal and state investment in regional public transit systems like PATH and Light Rail and is a strong advocate for expanding bike share access and has invested in increasing the amount of bike lanes. But there’s a long way to go to reducing transit related CO2 emissions. Here are a few clear areas for improvement:
a) Expand bike lanes: Jersey City has devised a plan to do so, recently passed, and following through with the plan could make biking a much more viable alternative to driving, especially in areas like the Heights and the city’s west side.
b) Improve public transit options: There’s not much the city can do to add capacity in the PATH system, but there’s a lot to be done in terms of buses: add more buses to make schedules more frequent, adapt new technology to ensure schedules are accurate and trackable, and add new routes.
c) Reduce emissions from public transit: Invest in electric buses and create a concrete plan to get diesel buses off the road. Infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs).
Waste: Cities all over the world are aiming to be “zero-waste” - an aspirational goal that would involve a serious commitment to recycling, composting, and encouraging less trash-producing consumption. The city’s recent plastic bag ban, which started in June, was a first big step, in addition to expansion of composting at community gardens. Again, more can be done, including banning styrofoam, striving for universal commercial composting for all organic waste, expanded educational programming on waste reduction strategies, expanding drop-off centers for food scraps, and providing more recycling bins. Creative incentive and disincentive programs are being explored in other cities that we can potentially learn from and which can be researched during the planning period.
A Note About Green Infrastructure: Any climate action plan must include climate change mitigation (reducing climate change inducing emissions in sectors like commercial buildings and transportation) and also climate change adaptation (improving communities’ ability to deal with the impacts of climate change). Green Infrastructure can be a multiplier effect for both mitigation and adaptation strategies. Infrastructure aimed at controlling stormwater runoff in a natural and sustainable way, is key. This could include increasing the acreage of green space and planting more trees and rain gardens, in order to relieve pressure on our combined sewer-stormwater system. Plus these natural systems absorb CO2 and other pollution and offsetting the urban heat island effect to keep us cooler (see the JC OpenTreeMap for more on the positive impacts of trees).
Economically and socially, it doesn’t hurt that each of these developments - retrofitting hundreds of buildings for energy efficiency, increasing renewable energy generation, and building other infrastructure for transportation and resiliency - would create hundreds if not thousands of jobs in Jersey City throughout the Climate Action Plan’s implementation.
Lastly, I recommend looking at the very accessible Stevens Institute JC Sustainability Report that expands on some of what is written here. It too is a good primer for getting more involved in green civics in Jersey City. And I hope you come out to the public meeting to share your ideas, too, as it’s important for the Climate Action Plan to be created by and for Jersey City residents!
