Columbus climate plan benefits from input of environmentalists

When climate scientists and activists look at Columbus’ plan to end its carbon emissions in the next three decades, they mostly like what they see.

Now comes the hard part: getting it done.

Experts said Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and a team of environmentalists and city officials came up with concrete ideas and outlined who is in charge of carrying out each part of the city’s strategy, which Ginther unveiled in a Dec. 10 news conference.

But barriers remain. Accomplishing some goals will require upgrading the power grid, an already uphill task made harder by a state government unlikely to address Ohio’s renewable energy needs.

Ginther asked the City Council for $10 million to carry out the action plan in the next fiscal year, and the proposals will require continuous funding and ongoing attention.

“It’s always hard to convince people to take action now that might save money over the long run,” said Jason

Cervenec, the education and outreach director for Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center.

And the public must remain vigilant, experts stressed.

“I am pretty optimistic,” said Cathy Becker, executive director of the Columbus-based social and environmental advocacy group Simply Living. “But it will take continued engagement.”

In the Dec. 10 news conference, Ginther said the city’s work is just beginning. City officials will continuously work with activists, scientists and stakeholders to carry it out, he said.

The mayor wants to reduce the city’s carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 and make Columbus carbon neutral by 2050 by offering business incentives, funding environmental nonprofits, installing solar panels, encouraging the use of city buses, adopting stricter building codes, planting trees and reducing waste.

Replacing gas-powered city vehicles with electric vehicles and installing LED streetlights are among the mayor’s proposals, but those provisions were already in the works.

The action plan came after two drafts environmentalists said they found insufficient. The first called for a 25% reduction by 2030.

“We said basically that’s too low,” Becker said. “That’s not in line with the science, which calls for 45% by 2030.”

Becker’s group asked to speak to the City Council and identify actions Columbus could take on its own, she said.

“Where it looked like there was corporate support, the goals got a lot stronger,” Becker said. “The first draft had three solar and microgrid projects by 2030, the second draft didn’t have any. We brought that to their attention, and in the final draft, they are up to five.” However, that figure is still short of the 10 projects Simply Living would like to see.

The second draft called for a bigger drop in carbon emissions, but not enough to achieve the reduction most experts agree is necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

A 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said global carbon emissions need to drop by at least half by 2030 to avoid the worst effects of a warming climate, which include extreme heat waves, more-frequent and intense hurricanes and superstorms, bigger and more dangerous wildfires, and crop failures.

Columbus makes up only a small fraction of global emissions, but as the largest city in one of the worst polluting states in the country, it can have an outsized impact, Becker said.

The climate strategy is only the first step. And even if the city provides the money to get started, a future mayor or city council could throw a wrench in the action plan by cutting off its funding.

“It’s easy for people to say, ‘If I do nothing there is no cost,’” Cernevec said. “And if you’re in government, do you want to put resources into something that won’t provide benefits until you’re out of office or 10 years into the future, when people have a hard time seeing that investment?”

And parts of the plan require action from people outside of the city government.

An all-electric fleet of city vehicles, for example, makes a bigger difference if Columbus gets more energy from renewable sources. That means modernizing the electric grid, a tall order without help from the state and federal governments.

“‘What’s the source of the electricity?’ is always the big question,” said Aaron Wilson, a research scientist and climate specialist with Ohio’s State’s agricultural extension service. “The obstacle is what is happening at the larger scale that moves us toward renewable energy sources.”

The Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly seems uninterested in addressing climate change, and a plan for incentives to switch to renewable power sources is stalled in the United States Senate over concerns about the cost.

The city’s plan assumes the Greater Columbus population eventually will grow to 3 million people, an estimate some experts consider too low.

“That doesn’t take into account anybody deciding to move out of the West because there’s no water, or there’s (wildfire) smoke,” Cervenec said. “Those things are not captured in the population estimates.”

The city’s climate strategy outlines the city agencies and nonprofits responsible for carrying out specific proposals. To Cernevec, that means greater accountability.

“You know who is the point person or the agency is that handles that,” he said.

“It was very forward thinking for the city to be putting a stake in the ground and saying ‘we’re going to do this now,’” Becker said. pcooley@dispatch.com @Patrickacooley