Responding to Climate Change:

Climate Action Planning for Institutions, Agencies, and Communities.

Date: Saturday, June 27, 2009
Time: 8:30am (Doors Open) – 12:30pm
Location: The Evergreen State College, Seminar II A1105

Overview:

Over 40 elected officials, public sector employees, and concerned citizens met on Saturday, June 27, 2009 to discuss Climate Action planning. The purpose of this symposium was to review and learn about climate action planning for agencies, institutions, and communities. The morning featured a review of climate action planning at the state, municipal, institutional, and grass roots levels. The goals of the symposium were to:

• Develop a deeper understanding of climate action planning issues and processes for our local communities;
• Explore a set of tools and processes for developing a climate action plan;
• Generate collaborative connections between higher education, local communities, and state agencies;
• Make new connections among stakeholders;
• Create a list of next steps.

According to the IPCC (InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change) global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased 70% from 1970 to 2004. The largest growth in GHG emissions came from energy supply, transportation, and industry. Residential and commercial buildings, forestry (including deforestation), and agriculture emissions grew at a lesser rate.

Changes in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses and aerosols, herbaceous land cover and solar radiation alter the energy balance of the climate system and are drivers of climate change. They affect the absorption, scattering and emission of radiation within the atmosphere and at the Earth’s surface. The resulting positive or negative changes in energy balance due to these factors are expressed as radiative forcing, which is used to compare warming or cooling influences on global climate. The measured increases in radiative forcing are very likely to have been unprecedented during the past 10,000 years. The CO₂ radiative forcing increased 20% from 1995 to 2005. (Please refer to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report for more details.)

Climate Action Planning directly addresses strategies for controlling and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions at the community and organizational level.

This was the fourth event in the South Puget Sound Climate Action Series.  We met in Evergreen's LEED Gold building: Seminar II, Room A1105.

Driving Directions and Map

Alternative Transportation Options (bike, bus, or carpool)

Attendees included:

City council members, public planners and public works officials, county commissioners, interested city and county staff members, agency representatives, institutional directors, strategic planners, and concerned individuals from both the public and private sectors.

Event Summary

Welcome: Scott Morgan, The Evergreen State College Office of Sustainability Coordinator

Excessive greenhouse gas levels and climate change have not developed as a result of any single individual or individual group’s actions. We have brought ourselves to this imminent crisis through the accumulated by-products of hundreds of thousands of actions by millions of people, so it stands to reason that we will need a comparable effort to get ourselves out of this crisis. Response to climate change is not something to be delegated to a few individuals or organizations; it will require that we all participate.

I have been asked why Evergreen is putting so much effort into climate action planning; we’re certainly not going to have a significant impact on the global situation by ourselves. My answer is that no one will have a significant impact on greenhouse gas levels, but everyone can; and we intend to do our part.

Everyone in this room has a slightly different perspective on global warming issues, either personal, organizational, or regional. Some of us will be working on technical solutions such as energy conservation and efficiency, or renewable energy generation. Some of us will be working on changing lifelong behaviors of thousands of people who are mostly content continuing in their established habits. Regardless of our perspectives though, we all have the same goal, making a positive response to climate change.

Today, we have an opportunity to work together, to share our strengths, and to begin the teamwork that we are going to need to get control of this crisis. Our first speaker is Hedia Adelsman, an Executive Policy Advisor in the Department of Ecology Director's Office. Hedia has been actively involved with the Washington Climate Action Team and climate policy recommendations. She is here to give us an overview of Washington state’s particular concerns.

Climate Action in Washington State - Hedia Adelsman (click link for her presentation)

Hedia serves as Executive Policy Advisor in the Department of Ecology Director's Office on major statewide policies and programs implementing some of the Governor's and the Agency's priority initiatives. She works on climate change policies, energy facilities siting and development, and innovative water management initiatives. She has extensive and diverse knowledge of water, environmental, land use, natural resources and energy laws, policies and programs. She received her BS in Agricultural Engineer from the University of Tunis, MS in economics from the University of Minnesota, and MBA from College of St Thomas, MN. 

A Brief Introduction to Climate Action Planning - Scott Morgan (click link for his presentation)

Scott is the Coordinator for the Office of Sustainability at Evergreen, and has spent the past 5 months actively engaged with organizing and compiling the College's Climate Action Plan.

Municipal Climate Action Planning - Jessica Bateman (click link for her presentation)

Jessica spoke on her experience over the past 3 months researching the City of Olympia's and other municipal planning processes and successful strategies.

Community Based Action - Barb Scavezze

Barb is a principal volunteer with Olympia Climate Action. She informed us of local citizen involvement with climate change response. She provided an inspiring and powerful call to action for everyone in the room to become personally involved with their community so that everyone together can make a difference.

Small Group Sessions - Building Collaborations

We broke into small groups based upon the different facets of climate action planning: greenhouse gas inventories, mitigation strategies, adaptation strategies, community engagement, and setting up a planning team.

Each group was asked to discuss and evaluate their individual responses to the following questions:

• Where are you now?
• What's a realistic next step?
• What partners/resources/knowledge do you need?
• What are your strengths, what can you contribute or share with others? 

Click HERE for the group summaries.

Please contact the Office of Sustainability for more information.

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