Columbia City Council tackles climate change in new resolution

In two years, Columbia should have a new plan to reduce climate pollution within the city.

The city council passed a resolution at its meeting Monday night to join the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. As part of the group, the city will keep an inventory of the greenhouse gas emissions of business and transportation sectors in town, as well as come up with a plan to reduce those levels.

Mayor Brian Treece announced earlier this month he would dedicate himself to the Climate Mayors program, days after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. The president cited his concerns that the deal was bad for the country’s economy. The mayoral group, which includes mayors of Kansas City and St. Louis, is working to keeping local communities dedicated to the the Accord’s goal of reducing carbon emissions.

The new agreement, which the council passed unanimously, will include a review of the city’s emissions. Office of Sustainability head Barbara Buffaloe said the benchmarks would help keep the city “accountable” in its efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Buffaloe said other similarly-sized cities, such as Fort Collins and Iowa City, have also joined the Global Covenant group and started by setting a reduction goal. The resolution originally called for an emission inventory in place after two years, and a Climate Action Plan by the third year.

Everyone who spoke at the meeting supported the push, but asked the timeline be moved up. Buffaloe agreed that she could accomplish some of the goals within a year, but developing an action plan would take input from the council and the public. Many that spoke agreed that public engagement would be crucial. Jay Hasheider, a member of the city’s Water and Light Advisory Board, said he hoped this push toward reducing “climate pollution” would stick, since a similar effort in 2006 fell apart.

“We’ve already more or less wasted 11 years because we said we were going to have a climate action plan back in 2006,” Hasheider said.

Buffaloe also suggested the council tackle the problem through an “equity lens” to avoid hurting some people in town with their decisions, such as “communities that already face socioeconomic and health inequalities.”

“Sometimes we can disenfranchise some of our community members,” Buffaloe said. “So being realistic with that is something to apply.”

Buffaloe said many cities hired a consulting firm to help them design the Climate Action Plan. Budgets have often been around $100,000 for that work. Buffaloe noted some savings her office had from other planned consulting work that she believes could be applied to this plan.