Government must move faster on climate, Wu says
Government is not moving urgently enough to address the climate crisis, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said on Thursday without hesitation, calling on state and federal leaders to move more swiftly.
“No,” Wu said flatly, to chuckles from the audience, in response to a question from The Boston Globe’s Washington bureau chief, Jackie Kucinich, about whether officials at the federal level share the urgency Wu feels about the climate crisis.
But it’s not just the federal government falling short, Wu added, citing obstacles from Massachusetts state officials and even barriers within the city of Boston itself.
“Just to be fair, I would even say that the urgency that I feel is not even reflected in our policies at the city level,” Wu added. “I feel desperate and impatient every day, seeing the headlines, thinking about the world that my kids are going to grow up in, and then coming up against the reality of systems that take a long time to move.”
Wu’s comments came on the third and final day of the Globe’s annual summit. During a 30-minute conversation with Kucinich at WBUR CitySpace, Wu, who pitched herself as Boston’s Green New Deal mayor, offered an update on the city’s climate policies and called on state and federal leaders to expedite funding and other administrative approvals that she said would empower Boston to act more swiftly to combat the climate crisis.
“Much of what we need to do is beyond the scope of what the city’s resources can address comprehensively,” Wu said. Offering one example, she noted that half of the city’s coast is managed by the state, and the cost of making the shoreline resilient to rising seas is too high to be borne without federal assistance. “Needing to pit communities against each other, still, for infrastructure funding... is holding us back,” she said.
Another barrier Wu named: a new state climate program that will allow 10 Massachusetts cities or towns to bar the use of fossil fuels in all new construction and major renovations. Boston is angling for a spot on the list, which Wu said would be “incredibly impactful.” But the mere fact that the program is so limited is a problem, Wu said.
“First of all, just the idea that we can pick 10 cities” — the mayor laughed — “and feel like this is the resources that are available. It is so frustrating to even be in the position of having to advocate either against another municipality, or to try to make our case, really, in comparison to many other much, much smaller cities and towns who have a very different set of goals.
‘I feel desperate and impatient every day, seeing the headlines ... and then coming up against the reality of systems that take a long time to move.’ MAYOR MICHELLE WU
“I would just implore the state — I mean, it’s a choice that we are putting a cap at 10,” Wu said. “It’s better than zero . ... But we’re in a race against a clock to completely reshape our built environment and consumption and societal habits and energy sources. And we need every possible barrier taken down.”
Social Justice
For philanthropic leaders, simply talking about social justice issues is not enough to move the needle. Instead, two of the state’s leading humanitarians said that using your platform to support grassroots advocacy groups already doing the work is necessary and will take social justice work further.
“It’s all about finding local nonprofits in your area,” said former New England Patriots star Devin McCourty. “I don’t need to have a better idea ... I just need to get with them.”
In a panel on “Championing Social Justice,” moderated by Globe business columnist and associate editor Shirley Leung, McCourty and Makeeba McCreary, president of the New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund, shared their paths to giving back and highlighted how benefactors can be better at helping movements.
The two panelists first connected through their shared vision of supporting community causes. NCF formed in 2020 when 19 Black and Latino executives, disillusioned with the plight of the COVID-19 pandemic and police killings of Black people, sought to fund on-theground organizations quickly and effectively.
Doing so, McCreary said, allows those organizations to enact change as they see fit.
“They’re already solving the problems,” McCreary said of community groups. “They just don’t have the resources to do it effectively.”
By the time McCourty first convened with NCF in 2020, when the social justice fund created by New England Patriots players gave the organization a grant, he had made headlines lobbying for eliminating disparities in public schools and raising a fist during the national anthem. But such actions didn’t come easy, McCourty said.
“Playing for the Patriots, it wasn’t popular to talk about topics outside of football,” he said. But “once I got out into some of these neighborhoods, I could really tell that my voice could have some impact.”
“We didn’t care if we were fired,” McCourty added. “We just wanted to be on the right side” of history.
Since then, NCF in August named McCourty one of its four directors.
“We’re excited we get to take advantage of [McCourty’s] star status, but we also appreciate the work he’s done and what he brings to the table,” McCreary said.
NCF has raised $35 million in its three years, McCreary said, but she said she feels the fundraising energy that marked 2020 has slowed down, and many corporations who pledged to give back in the year after George
Floyd’s murder — what some estimate as $200 billion nationally — have gone silent.
Continued momentum is critical because the issues that plagued 2020 are just as widespread today, McCreary said. She called on nonprofits and corporations to publicize their contributions and show the actual progress they’ve made.
“Leveling the playing field is critical, and that starts with telling the truth,” McCreary said.
Though Massachusetts has a wealth of nonprofits and philanthropists eager to fund organizations, groups doing work outside of Boston are often left out of these funding networks, McCreary said. To combat the disparity, she said NCF is visiting sites in cities such as Brockton and Randolph to ensure they can access necessary funding.
“We want it to be clear that we’re a Commonwealth-wide funding resource,” McCreary said.
Beyond financing social causes, McCreary and McCourty agreed there are other ways to lift grassroots organizations. McCreary said that NCF is also encouraging such groups to ask for help to navigate the grant application process.
For McCourty, it includes “taking two hours out of the day” to visit a nonprofit organization and deciding, “You matter.”
“Things happen, things will continue to change, obstacles will continue to be there,” McCourty said.
“But there will always be perseverance.”
Emma Platoff can be reached at emma.platoff@globe.com. Follow her @emmaplatoff. Tiana Woodard is a Report for America corps member covering Black neighborhoods. She can be reached at tiana.woodard@globe.com. Follow her @tianarochon.