Here are five ideas coming out of local governments that promise to shape the national debate on climate change and energy reform:
1. PACE. Born in Berkeley, Calif., Property Assessed Clean Energy programs are rewiring how homeowners pay for expensive renewable energy systems and efficiency upgrades by treating them as an ordinary neighborhood utility upgrade. More than 20 states have laws in place to facilitate the program.
"There are a lot of property tax regimes in the country," said Michael Northrop, program director for sustainable development for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York. If the growth of affordable renewable energy depends on PACE, the country is going to need "a hell of a lot" of these programs, he cautioned. But "there are a lot of them in process, ... and there's a national infrastructure of people working on it."
2. Household MPG. If you sell a home in Austin, Texas, you need to have an energy audit performed. Berkeley and a host of cities have moved or are moving in a similar direction. The idea is to make energy efficiency part of the equation as you shop for a home.
"When you buy a house, you hire someone to inspect it. You learn a lot about the health of the building, but you don't learn anything about the building's energy use," said Cisco DeVries, president of Renewable Funding, a leader in programs that aid in municipal energy financing. "We need to get to a place where homes have a MPG on them."
3. Feed-in-tariffs. In March Gainesville, Fla. replaced its renewable energy rebate program with a feed-in-tariff, guaranteeing the price of electricity generated from solar panels for the next 20 years. Supporters say the tariff, which spreads the cost for renewable energy over all customers, offers a far more stable financial regime than a rebate program, the model for most utilities and which, in Gainesville, the tariff replaced.
Germany is seen as the pioneer on this front, and officials at Gainesville Regional Utilities toured several different European solar models before committing. So it's worth noting that the German model started first at the municipal level, then went national.
4. The street plug. Cities, pressed by pollution limits, are increasingly partnering with automakers to provide charging stations and other infrastructure to ease the transition to electric vehicles. And we're not talking San Francisco, Boulder, Seattle and other "green" communities.
As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, Houston, Orlando and Indianapolis are all cultivating EVs. Cities and utilities are planning fast-charge stations and will offer home-charging kits and tailored rate plans.
5. Congestion pricing. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to charge drivers for access to Manhattan during peak hours got slapped down by the state Assembly in 2008. But it's showing signs of life on the West Coast, as San Francisco, San Diego and Orange County, Calif., explore options.
And in reality, de-facto congestion pricing is already in place in Denver, Cape Coral, Fla., and other regions with dynamic tolls that charge based on traffic flow. "There is a consensus among economists," the U.S. Department of Transportation concludes, "that congestion pricing represents the single most viable and sustainable approach to reducing traffic congestion.
This article originally appeared at The Daily Climate, the climate change news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.
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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.