By Christa Koehler, Community Program Manager for Clean Air Cool Planet and Steve Whitman, Jeffrey H. Taylor and Associates

It pays to plan for climate change. Across the northeastern United States, community planners are emerging as key players in addressing rising energy prices and other effects of global warming.

One Northeast community where city planners have helped shape a comprehensive plan on climate change is Keene, New Hampshire. Residents and officials in Keene were concerned about a variety of potential impacts from global warming, including the losses of winter recreation, tourism, fall foliage, maple sugaring, and cold-water fishing. Keene became interested in improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions because such efforts made clear economic sense, while also offering benefits for community vitality. More immediate threats such as the northward spread of West Nile Virus and a devastating flood in October 2005 reinforced the need to take local actions in response to climate change.*

Keene isn't the only Northeast community concerned about climate change and energy. Clean Air Cool Planet (CA-CP)**, the region's leading organization dedicated to finding and promoting solutions to global warming, has partnered with cities across the Northeast, including Nashua (NH), Stamford (CT), Portland (ME), Montpelier (VT), Maplewood (NJ), Pittsburgh (PA), Boston, and New York City. These and other CA-CP partner cities are all taking steps that reduce energy consumption while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the things that communities can do to address climate change is to add sections to their Comprehensive Plans dealing with energy and greenhouse gases. Such additions can include efforts that address the following:

• Energy conservation measures, which save taxpayers money while reducing pollutants that contribute to local asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
• Reducing fossil fuels used in transportation, which encourages compact urban development, mass transit, bike/pedestrian friendly communities and alleviates traffic congestion.
• Reducing methane from solid waste, which encourages recycling programs, build soil, and save money in waste disposal costs.

Addressing climate change in the Comprehensive Plan provides long range policy level guidance while also creating multiple benefits for the whole community. For example, Joe Broyles of the New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning recently estimated that New Hampshire spends $3 billion a year on petroleum fuel, and that 70 percent of that money spent goes out of the state. What if that money was instead spent in-state, and put into the local economy? If New Hampshire could reduce fuel usage and replace imported fuels with local energy sources, it could generate billions in additional economic activity.

These economic data should spur the Northeast, or any region, to develop local economies where money stays in the community. Through energy conservation measures and investments in local fuel sources such as wind, geothermal, solar and bio-fuels, local planners can position their communities for the future as model regions exemplifying the kind of energy security that has eluded the entire nation for the past three decades.

Clean Air - Cool Planet has partnered with planning consultants Jeffrey H. Taylor and Associates to create a Community Toolkit as a resource for planners on climate change. With this Toolkit we guide local governments through the process of implementing sustainable policies and projects and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Toolkit is searchable by topics including energy reduction programs, transportation initiatives, waste reduction policies, green building initiatives, local food production, and land use issues. You can experience the toolkit at: www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/for_communities/toolkit_home.php.

Here are a few examples of communities that are trying to address their energy budgets through greenhouse gas reductions. In each case, planners are taking a leading role in the success of the initiative:

• In 2005 the city of Stamford (CT) earned a Climate Champion Award at CA-CP's New York City conference following the release of their emissions inventory. The award celebrated actions that reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent -- curbing global warming and saving the city more than $1.1 million in annual energy costs.
• In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed Local Law #86 of 2005, which sets green building standards for certain capital projects. The law affects approximately $12 billion in construction, including $5 billion in new schools, over the City's 10-year capital plan. It requires most new and substantially renovated City buildings costing more than $2 million to be built according to the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building standard or other equally stringent standard. In addition to City buildings, the law applies to any capital projects of non-City agencies that are funded by the City, provided the City is contributing at least $10 million or 50 percent of cost of the project.
• In June 2005, the city of Portland (ME), following participation in CA-CP's cross-border exchange with Canadian cities, joined a state-wide Governor's Carbon Challenge initiative. This state program seeks voluntary commitments to lowering carbon pollution. Clean Air-Cool Planet is helping Portland develop several projects, including energy efficient product procurement and anti-idling policy for public vehicles.
• Keene (NH) is looking into hiring an Energy Service Company (ESCO) to retrofit city buildings using a performance contract in which the ESCO is paid solely through the resulting energy savings. Keene expects to save a minimum of $30,000 a year through the retrofits.
• In 2006 the City of Pittsburgh (PA) was awarded $300,000 by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to integrate biodiesel in its entire diesel fleet. The City's plan, developed in partnership with Steel City Biofuels, will displace 30% of Pittsburgh's petroleum diesel with locally-produced biodiesel . This translates to the direct displacement of 1,836 tons of carbon dioxide and 859 pounds of sulfur oxides. Pittsburgh has also achieved national recognition as a leader in green building and is home to the world's first LEED-certified convention center. With well over 2,700,000 square-feet of certified buildings in the city, Pittsburgh consistently ranks in the top three cities nationwide for green buildings.

Integrating "sustainable" or "green" building practices into the construction of state buildings is a solid financial investment: an upfront investment of less than two percent of construction costs can yield life cycle savings of over ten times the initial investment. For example, an initial upfront investment of up to $100,000 to incorporate green building features into a $5 million project would likely result in a savings of at least $1 million over the life of the building, assumed conservatively to be 20 years.

When you look at the taxpayer dollars cities are saving through these and other responses to climate change, it's clear that local responses to global climate change make good financial sense. Through relatively straightforward climate change policies, local governments can do a lot to reduce energy costs and improve energy security throughout their communities. And of course, the resulting reductions in local greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions --combined with the reductions of tens of thousands of communities around the world-- are an important contribution to the global fight against climate change.

Visit Clean Air - Cool Planet at www.cleanair-coolplanet.org for more information on the Community Toolkit.

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* While the October 2005 flood cannot of course be attributed directly to global warming, it was the type of extreme precipitation event that scientists link to a warming climate.

** Cool Planet also works closely with ICLEI's Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program to help communities through a step-by-step process of energy and emissions inventory, planning, and emissions reductions actions.