Accelerating Climate Adaptation & Resiliency in Communities
Suggested by
Joel Serface
almost 4 years ago
34% of CO2 emissions are attributed to the built environment and 70% of CO2 emissions are attributed to cities. Communities (as a manageable microcosm of cities) need to be activated to get to net zero as quickly as possible and often don't know where to begin.
In addition, communities are crumbling under age, antiquated design, and climate change. They do not have the tools today to view and manage what they currently have, understand what the condition is, how to make it resilient, or value the benefits of changing. Extremely few have tools to design, build, finance, and operate new infrastructure that is resilient, affordable, and enhances community equity.
To make it worse, communities that have been historically underinvested are facing the greatest challenges -- and have the most upside from re-thinking and re-making themselves.
There is $150 trillion in global capital trying to find a way to invest into climate solutions, but don't have standardizable or replicable ways to make investments into communities. In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act has allocated $370B (some would consider it closer to $1 trillion with the green bank multiplier) to kick-start investment into our communities, yet they don't know how to activate this effectively. The pressure and threat of climate change is already being felt -- and communities need to act fast and intelligently in order to quickly transform themselves in this moment.
CEO/Co-Founder @ Rhiz
I won't propose a solution just yet, although I will say I co-founded a non-profit initiative that I aim to revamp and scale one day into inner cities that addresses this. For what it's worth, my Master's thesis revolved around community gardens in inner cities as not only green infrastructure, combatting food deserts, etc. but as legitimate crime reducers, believe it or not.
What I'd started was the Edible Trails Project (free/native edibles in public areas, was the model) https://edibletrails.org/
Point being, "reducing CO2 emissions" as the target may not address ancillary issues, for instance, if say an array of conversion fans were placed in West Baltimore.
Green infrastructure, however, is both a CO2 sink by its nature but can have related benefits for the short and long term.
I emphasize the Edible Trails model as this can hit various grant-based deliverables be it native plantings, green infrastructure, community spaces, food resilience, crime reduction, wildlife habitat, etc.
Thanks for starting the discussion, Joel.
Advisor, Product Strategy @ Various Startups
https://twitter.com/jigarshahdc/status/1599038022615699456?s=46&t=E1eYUzzkfBHnvMps8Ndgjg
great thread on where some communities can get a jumpstart.