STARTING SMALL: Local efforts to trim emissions, change economies and alter behavior are good learning exercises for developing national climate and energy policy, experts say.
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Call them the Silicon Valley garages of climate policy.
Local efforts to trim emissions, change economies and alter behavior are serving as idea labs where mistakes can be made and novel approaches honed in preparation for setting national climate and energy policy.
These ideas can have a powerful influence in the climate debate, say policy experts: Within the recently released climate bill are many lessons learned in these local laboratories. And as discussion in Congress intensifies, many lawmakers will find themselves pushed by proponents of these municipal efforts to extend their reach to the national stage.
"There's no doubt cities are the place where all these things are being tried," said Julia Parzan, coordinator of the Urban Sustainability Directors Network , a group of civic leaders dedicated to sharing the experiences of various municipal sustainable development efforts.
"And when they're hitting walls, they're going for (changes in) state policy and federal policy."
Exhibit A is the firestorm of revisions to municipal codes and state laws concerning how residential renewable energy and energy efficiency projects are financed.
It started in the spring of 2007, when staffers for the City of Berkeley, Calif., were casting about for a way to make roof-top solar affordable for a typical homeowner.
The ah-ha moment came as Cisco DeVries, then the top aide to Mayor Tom Bates, was untangling some knots in a neighborhood push to establish an underground utilities district, where homeowners agree to taxes on their properties to bury electric wires and cables.
If homeowners could diffuse the high costs of burying utility lines, DeVries reasoned, they should have the opportunity to do the same for the high up-front costs of putting solar panels on their roofs.
And so a new financing scheme was born. Berkeley pioneered the so-called Property Assessed Clean Energy program, where residents pay for household renewable energy and efficiency improvements over 20 years via a special tax or assessment on their property tax bills.
The idea took off like a brush fire.
DeVries left city government shortly thereafter. He helped launch Renewable Funding in 2008 in Oakland, Calif. with one other person. Today it a major player in the development of municipal clean-energy financing, with 50 employees and offices in six states. It is helping 240 local governments set up similar programs. Twenty states have amended their laws to facilitate such programs: Missouri last week, Minnesota last month; Florida is in the finishing stages.
"There are lots of ideas – good, bad and indifferent – and they never get any traction," said DeVries, who is president of the company. "But then there are moments when a window opens, and those moments are very powerful."
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6 Comments
Add CommentIf Cisco DeVries would hit these states that use fossil fuel to produce power and teach them a better way and implement laws in those states, we would not have to wait 50 years to start cutting and cleaning up greenhouse gases. We could start living in a clean environment much faster. It would be good to drink clean stream water, breathe clean air, and live on clean land again like I did when I was a child before all this greed and destruction began.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA better title would be: "Local Governments Lead Efforts to Combat Global Warming".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCombating 'Climate Change' would be particularly futile, unless we can stop the progression of time - right now!
If you don't like the weather in (name of place here), stick around - it'll change!
vendicar9 - Your more intelligent remarks are far more humorous than I could ever hope to hope for! What a moron - get it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne would think that the city government of Berkeley has everything under control so that they can focuus on wider issues than mundane things like city services and budget managment. However that seems not to be the case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom the Berkely Daily Planet, in an article entitled Berkeley's Budget Nightmare, it states that "After years of high spending and high local taxation, the City of Berkeley is facing an annual operating deficit of 16.5M which will grow exponentially unless drastic measures are taken. Clearly this is a terrible situation for the City, its residents, and its taxpayers."
"From the Berkely Daily Planet, in an article entitled Berkeley's Budget Nightmare, it states that "After years of high spending and high local taxation, the City of Berkeley is facing an annual operating deficit of 16.5M which will grow exponentially unless drastic measures are taken. " - Soccer Dad
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe entire American State is a fiscal basketcase.
Uncle Sam is morally, ethically, intellectually and fiscally bankrupt.
Why wait for local governments to make the first move?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only way to tackle climate change is to work in industry on research and development of alternative solutions.
Energy company lobbys influence politicians who become mere puppets. Rather than just griping, readers would be well advised to roll their slieves up and discover new green solutions.