More frequent and exponentially larger wildfires and prolonged drought already are impacting Colorado's agricultural lands and regional economies.

To ensure communities can survive and thrive in a changing climate, a broad range of stakeholders are working to create the state's first-ever private lands conservation plan.

Melissa Daruna, executive director of Keep it Colorado, said preserving at least 30% of the state's landscapes before 2030 is a critical first step to protect ecosystems sustaining people, farms and wildlife.

"And there is a huge opportunity with conserving private lands to help us reach goals that create more resiliency for our communities," Daruna emphasized. "Both in that wildland-urban interface, but also in rural parts of the state."

Of Colorado lands, 60% are privately owned, so Daruna pointed out one focus of the plan will be removing barriers, including making it financially viable for landowners to protect farm and ranch lands, watersheds and wildlife corridors. Several compensation options already are available to landowners, including cash payouts and state tax credits, but Daruna noted new revenue streams will also need to be tapped.

Scientists project conserving at least 50% of lands and waters by 2050 will be necessary to ride out the turbulence of a warming planet.

Daruna noted the Colorado plan calls for land trusts and other partners to include communities traditionally underrepresented in conservation efforts.

"Voices from Indigenous communities and tribal governments," Daruna outlined. "Our lower-income populations tend to have both less access to the outdoors, but also less of the positive impacts of ensuring clean drinking water and clean air in their communities."

Keep it Colorado's team recently completed a listening tour consulting with land trusts and other stewardship organizations to define areas to be kept intact. Daruna added the plan's next phase will lay the groundwork for developing conservation priorities meeting landowner needs and help create more resilient communities.

"These are natural landscapes, agricultural and working lands, critical wildlife habitat, and additional opportunities for outdoor recreation for the future," Daruna concluded.

Across Pennsylvania and other northern U.S. states, climate change -- from burning oil, coal and methane gas -- is increasing the number of winter days with minimum temperatures above freezing.

The phenomenon is known as "lost winter" and a Climate Shift Index analysis of temperatures showed more than 60% of 28 snow belt states are having at least one additional week of days above freezing.

Shel Winkely, a meteorologist and weather and climate engagement specialist for Climate Central, said winter weather will not be as cold for as long as it used to be.

"Temperatures that are below freezing -- so, 32 degrees Fahrenheit, or zero degrees Celsius -- those are important days," Winkely explained. "We found out how many days climate change has taken away overnight lows that are at or below the freezing temperature."

Winkley pointed out when you look at the 30-year average of snowfall for Pennsylvania, cities like Philadelphia now have only a 9% chance of seeing a white Christmas, with Pittsburgh faring a bit better at about 31%.

Winkley emphasized the loss of cold winter days can negatively affect some regions that depend economically on winter sports for recreation and tourism income. He added lost winter days can also contribute to a smaller snowpack, meaning less spring-melt water is available for municipal systems or agricultural operations.

"On the whole, the state, when you take the average over this decade -- again, 2014 to 2023 -- climate change added about 10 days per year above 32 degrees or so above freezing," Winkley reported.

Winkley noted the report does not mean winters are going away but the warming climate is making winters shorter and less intense.

"This doesn't mean that there's not cold, or that we're losing all of the cold," Winkley stressed. "We still have cold that is to be found. It just means that we're losing those classic winters. This isn't the winters that our parents experienced or that our grandparents experienced."


get more stories like this via email

By Ysabelle Kempe for Smart Cities Dive.
Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Texas News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Lately, the city of Dallas has been hearing from local leaders across the U.S. and as far as London, England, said Rosana Savcic, a division manager in the city's code compliance department. What has caught their attention? A city policy that took effect in 2017 requiring landlords to provide working air conditioning equipment.

More cities are looking into establishing a renter's right to cooling equipment as climate change drives record-breaking temperatures across the world. Such rules codify tenants' right to housing that can be cooled to a specific maximum indoor temperature, a number that varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Tenants may still be on the hook for their energy bills, however.

Right now, cities that require landlords to provide AC systems are the exception, not the rule, says V. Kelly Turner, a heat policy researcher and associate director of the University of California, Los Angeles' Luskin Center for Innovation.

That may be changing. Montgomery County, Maryland, passed a first-in-the-region law in 2020 requiring many landlords to provide AC equipment capable of cooling units to at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit from June through September. A 2022 Chicago law requires some large residential buildings or buildings for older people to provide AC in common spaces when the outdoor heat index exceeds 80 F. A New Orleans rule went into effect this year mandating AC equipment that can cool bedrooms to at least 80 F.

In New York City's sustainability plan, the nation's largest city indicates its intention to develop a summer indoor maximum temperature policy by 2030. In July, a NYC council member introduced legislation that would require landlords to provide AC equipment in the summer. Los Angeles County officials are in the early stages of developing a similar policy.

The case for cooling

The trend toward cooling requirements is part of a broader recognition that climate change necessitates new protections and policies, experts say.

"What we're learning is we have to develop policies specific to the issue of heat," said Ashley Ward, director of Duke University's Heat Policy Innovation Hub. In addition to rental cooling standards, heat-specific policy needs include worker protections and universal cooling for schools and prisons, Ward notes.

The major challenge proponents of rental cooling standards need to overcome, Ward says, is the public perception that air conditioning is a luxury, not a necessity. That perception "is why we can justify not having air conditioning in prisons. Forty percent of our schools in the U.S. have inadequate HVAC," Ward said. But as heat records get broken again and again, and heat-related deaths escalate, proponents see policymaker attitudes shifting.

Limitations of right-to-cooling policies

While rental cooling standards may be a step toward addressing urban heat impacts on residents, these policies aren't perfect solutions, Ward said.

Even if lower-income renters have AC equipment, they might not turn it on for fear of high energy bills. That's why some experts have urged states and cities to complement rental cooling standards with utility bill assistance programs that take cooling needs into account. States typically use much more of the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to help people with heating rather than cooling bills. And while the need for support is growing, the pot of available LIHEAP funding shrank from $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2023 to $4.1 billion in fiscal year 2024, according to a June report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association and Center for Energy Poverty and Climate.

Cities need to start monitoring low-income households' ability to pay for cooling, Turner said in an email. That data could build a case for better supporting cooling through subsidy programs like LIHEAP.

Utilities can also help make cooling more affordable, explained Gregory Pierce, research and co-executive director of UCLA's Luskin Center and an associate professor of urban planning. State public utilities commissions can play a big role in imposing or encouraging utility-run energy affordability programs, but cities can pitch in on the effort, too, such as by collaborating with utilities on programs that make baseline amounts of energy more affordable for people, Turner said.

Tiered payment programs, for example, charge those who use a lot of electricity a higher rate than those who use less. Hotter weather, however, might mean those tiers need to be adjusted, so that the most affordable tier accounts for the amount of energy needed to cool the typical home, Pierce said.

"Not a lot of utilities have, I think, adjusted those tiers accordingly yet to account for AC, much less electrification," he said.

Any equity-oriented program must involve listening to community members about their specific struggles, Turner added. "There may be solutions we don't even know to think about because we need to hear from those that would be facing those tough choices," such as between turning on the AC and putting food on the table, she said.

Rental cooling standards also present other challenges. Cash-strapped landlords may struggle to undertake complex, expensive retrofits. Waste heat that AC equipment generates increases the urban heat island effect, and adding cooling equipment to buildings can drive up greenhouse gas emissions - although heat pumps allow building owners to simultaneously offer cooling and potentially replace fossil fuel-powered HVAC equipment.

How low should cities go?

Then there's the question of what cities should set as the maximum temperature in rental housing. Dallas' rule requires AC equipment that can keep rooms at least 15 degrees cooler than the outdoor temperature, with a maximum temperature threshold of 85 F. That means that even if it's 105 degrees outside, rental housing must be equipped to stay at 85 F or cooler.

Ward thinks cities should set the maximum temperature lower. She cites 73 F as the threshold for a good night's sleep and recovery. She recommends cities set a maximum temperature around 76 F, since fans can help bring the temperature down another couple of degrees.

However, over-debating the exact maximum temperature can stifle productive policymaking, Turner warned. She said she'd rather set the maximum temperature at 80 F and start a conversation about what it will take to implement the policy, including developing a complaint-reporting process and finding funding.

"To some degree, the question isn't, 'Can we get exactly [the right] temperature?' The question is, 'Can we get something on the books to at least give people a fighting chance of having a safe thermal environment?'" she said. "Once we do that, we can start to tinker."


Ysabelle Kempe wrote this article for Smart Cities Dive.


get more stories like this via email

Three environmental nonprofits filed suit Wednesday against the California Air Resources Board to oppose the expansion of a program allowing oil and gas companies to offset their pollution by buying credits from huge farms producing natural gas from animal waste.

Last month, the state amended the low carbon fuel standard to expand credits favoring biogas, arguing it removes methane from the waste stream and creates renewable power.

Tyler Lobdell, staff attorney for the nonprofit co-plaintiff Food and Water Watch, said the program is actually a perverse incentive for factory farms to get bigger.

"The biggest operators, the biggest polluters, are the most rewarded," Lobdell pointed out. "That is the incentive structure here. Go out and be as big and as polluting as possible, and you will see the largest reward from our program."

The low carbon fuel standard is intended to reduce carbon pollution by incentivizing the transition to clean cars. The lawsuit argued the credit program prioritizes pollution-heavy practices over sustainable solutions.

Lobdell noted manure only produces methane when large quantities are liquefied at concentrated animal feeding operations. He suggested the state require factory farms to manage their manure in ways which do not rely on anaerobic environments emitting methane.

"The real solution to addressing pollution is to reduce the pollution, not to monetize it and lock it in for generations," Lobdell contended. "We should be requiring these facilities to more sustainably manage their waste. That would have climate benefits, that would also have benefits to local air quality and to local water quality."

The lawsuit asks the court to require the California Air Resources Board to disclose, analyze and mitigate the environmental impact caused by the change to the low-carbon fuel standard. The other two plaintiffs include the nonprofits Defensores del Valle Central para el Aire y Agua Limpio, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund.


get more stories like this via email