San Antonio climate effort earns $2.5M in study funds
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, announcing San Antonio’s selection as one of 25 cities to benefit from a two-year program to address global environmental change, said the city is proof that “climate action and economic growth really do go hand-in-hand.”
“This is one of the fastest growing big cities in the nation. You are growing your economy, and you’re investing in sustainability, which I think is very smart,” Bloomberg, U.N. special envoy for climate action, said Friday.
San Antonio and Austin are the two Texas cities named Friday as winners of the Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge, a program of Bloomberg Philanthropies. It will provide staff and technology support worth $2.5 million for implementation of the city’s climate action and adaptation plan known as S.A. Climate Ready.
City officials said a draft plan will be made public in two weeks for a monthlong comment period and could be considered by the City Council in April.
San Antonio will use the support and resources to convert electricity supply for all municipal operations to 100 percent renewable sources, increase the number of electric vehicles in the city fleet and expand the number of electric-vehicle charging stations citywide. The program also will support efforts to improve energy efficiency in municipal and private buildings, and help develop a more effiicent citywide transportation system.
Bloomberg Philanthropies initially invited 100 of the nation’s largest cities to compete for the program, with San Antonio emerging as one making a serious effort to comply with the Paris Climate Agreement, even though President Donald Trump decided in 2017 to withdraw the United States from the international accord, Bloomberg said.
“So mayors get it, even though the White House clearly does not. But you can have responsible climate action and economic growth at the same time,” he said.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg said the city could not expect the state or federal government to take the lead in addressing climate change, including rising temperatures and predictions of more frequent and intense droughts and flooding, which, coupled with the city’s growth rate, pose challenges for San Antonio’s future.
“We can’t wait for Austin or Washington. We must be realistic. We must be ambitious about our own preparedness and resilience as a city,” he said. “The real national emergency is the impacts of climate change. How we respond, though, is really up to all of us.”
San Antonio’s climate plan is being crafted by the city, CPS Energy, the University of Texas at San Antonio and Navigant, a Chicago-based consultant. A steering committee and five working groups focus on climate equity, water and natural resources, transportation and land use, waste and consumption and energy and buildings. In online surveys in the fall, San Antonians showed highest levels of support for efforts to reduce energy consumption, improve traffic mobility and provide safe, reliable public transit.
Douglas Melnick, the city’s chief sustainable officer, said the two-year Bloomberg program will give the city access to cutting-edge climate data, and will focus on reductions in greenhouse gases from buildings and transportation, believed to make up about 85 percent of San Antonio’s emissions.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity,” Melnick said. “I think it elevates the issue. It will really raise the profile of what we’re doing here. And I think the second part is that it’s really going to help us with implementation.”
Greg Harman, clean energy organizer with the Sierra Club and member of the steering committee, said eliminating coal as a source of electricity is San Antonio’s key issue regarding buildings. Although CPS Energy recently closed its coal-burning Deely plant and has reduced reliance on coal from 32 percent to 18 percent of its energy portfolio in the past eight years, it plans to still be using coal for 7 percent of its energy in 2040.
Harman and other members of the environmental group Climate Action SA want coal eliminated by 2025.
“This plan should be driven and shaped by grass-roots interests,” Harman said. “If we were 100 percent renewable, we wouldn’t have a problem with our buildings.”
Bloomberg called coal “the one thing, that if you could get rid of coal worldwide, it would make a very big difference.” But even though renewable sources such as wind and solar are “really starting to come along” as price-competitive, he said he supports efforts to help poor, coal-producing communities and states affected by decreased reliance on coal.
Before addressing the environment, Bloomberg criticized Trump for allowing the partial government shutdown to stretch into the start of a fourth week Saturday. Later, when questioned by a reporter, Bloomberg said he was considering whether to run for president as a Democrat in 2020, and could make a decision in the next six weeks.
“I believe we need to do more to secure our borders. But the government shutdown, I think, is certainly a failure of presidential leadership and it’s just an outrage,” he said.