Peril & Promise

New to the Pack, Seattle Sets Aggressive Targets for Climate Resilience

harrise | August 9, 2017

Last month, over 500 world leaders gathered in New York City for the 100 Resilient Cities Network’s 2017 Urban Resilience Summit. On the third day of the Summit we sat down with Seattle’s Chief Resilience Officer Jessica Finn-Coven to find out more about what this west-coast city is doing to become more resilient in the face of climate changes, and how they are connecting it to inequity and social justice.

Peril and Promise: Each city has its own unique challenges. What would you say are the main climate change challenges for Seattle?

Finn-Coven: First. Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S., do there are a lot of opportunities that come with growth but there’s also a lot of pressures. We’ve looked a lot at how to grow as a city in a way that allows us to also meet our very ambitious climate goals. We have some of the most ambitious climate targets anywhere in the world – to be carbon neutral by 2050. And we know that we need to reach those limits while still massively expanding our population. We are lucky that we’ve seen huge job growth in our economy because of our expansion in clean energy, and because of our expanded focus on climate change rather than in spite of it. So we focused quite a bit on growth in how that impacts the climate.

We’ve also looked a lot at equity. We are a city that is guided by Seattle’s race and social justice initiatives. We’ve said “Who is going to be impacted most by climate change? How can we engage those folks in the decision making on how we respond to climate impacts? How can we make sure when we are making investments in clean energy that all our communities thrive from?”

Peril and Promise: What exactly are the most major sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Seattle and how do you anticipate putting in place programs to reduce emissions by to net zero by 2050?

Finn-Coven: It is no easy task that’s for sure. Seattle is quite lucky – we have a municipally owned electric utility that was the first carbon neutral electric utility in the country so our electricity supply is already carbon neutral.

Now of course as we’re looking at a very rapidly growing population transportation emissions are of particular concern for us. We know we need to get more people around our city while reducing pollution. Some of the things that we have been doing is really massively expanding transit services. The people of Seattle have been huge supporters in this effort voting a number of times over the last few years to tax themselves to increase transit and transportation capabilities.

We’re also looking at how can we connect our carbon neutral electricity to the transportation sector. So we last year launched the drive clean Seattle initiative that’s really focused on electrifying our transportation sector so that we have zero-emission buses. It also involves really rapid investment in transportation electrification infrastructure. This year alone will triple the number of fast chargers in Seattle so that more folks can feel confident in purchasing an electric vehicle. We’ve made investments so that by the year 2025, 100 percent of our non-emergency passenger sedans will be electric within the city of Seattle fleet.

What we can’t forget about is that the issue of housing and housing affordability is a key determinant in our pollution from our transportation sector because if people can’t afford to live near where they work, where they go to school, where they recreate…they’ll be driving. That will increase our transportation emissions. So our efforts to increase housing affordability in Seattle have been a really key component of our climate work as well.

Peril and Promise: What are some outreach efforts and education efforts that Seattle has made to engage the population in a conversation about climate resiliency, to get them involved?

Finn-Coven: In my office and in Mayor Murray’s administration, we take the view that those most impacted are the experts in their own community. We have to listen to the best ways to invest in a community, and make sure the community members are a part of everything we do.

One of the most exciting things that we’ve done this year is create the first Environmental Justice Committee for the city of Seattle. We have 18 residents representing various constituencies who are part of a body designed to advise us on what we’re getting right and what we’re getting wrong. They go back to their own communities as trusted advocates and solicit ideas and advice that then we are held accountable to act on.

Seattle, who joined the 100 Resilient Cities network just last year, is in the process of drafting their Resilience Strategy now. Highlights should include projects to retrofit homes to guard against destructive Earthquakes, and outreach to underserved communities as Seattle’s population grows.