We have failed to address climate change across all policy areas. Now as we begin to integrate climate driven policies, those policies must recognize context and community based solutions. These solutions are a necessary lens of understanding climate policy. PLACE Initiative urges that urbanism be a central and integral piece of the reimagined climate change action era, and are committed to helping provide these contextual solutions and analysis for future climate driven policy.
Please visit How Biden Can Ensure Every Federal Agency is Fighting Climate Change for reference on the administration’s current policy proposals.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUREFocus on supporting carbon-farming: a transition away from the use of fossil fuel inputs to agriculture, instead pivoting to becoming a net carbon sink that sequesters much more carbon than is emitted, annually and cumulatively.
Focus on supporting rural generational transition from the current private landholding model, to an inclusive and diverse model that supports small, local land stewardship through farming and land management trusts operated by farming and land management cooperatives.
The Department of Agriculture can seek to locate all of its operations in such a way that they occupy and support operations with distributed footprints rather than centralized ones, and can thus help to play an anchor role in the walkable town centers around which the communities we need must be rebuilt to become both more sustainable and more resilient.
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCESupport the development, maintenance, distribution, and deployment of open source software and data to help create the communities of the future that we need.
Establish a carbon tracking system that models and tracks the generation, use, and sequestration of carbon across all sectors of the economy, for benchmarking and financial purposes.
Support creating systems of neighborhood food co-ops.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSEThe Department of Defense has global infrastructure and capabilities that should be re-purposed from military to humanitarian purposes, with a focus on supporting climate refugees, providing emergency assistance during and following natural and other disasters, and creating a peaceful environment that facilitates follow-up work with the UN. and the Dept of State to facilitate community-building and civil society resiliency efforts that will lead to decreased carbon emissions, increased carbon sequestration, and pathways to generational wealth-building in inclusive societies.
The Department of Defense can seek to locate and plan for the integration of its domestic facilities in such a way that they help to play a supporting role in the walkable town centers around which the communities we need must be re-built to become both more sustainable and more resilient.
The Department of Defense can work on migration infrastructure and support, to support and facilitate climate migrants, refugees, and others, domestic and international, who may need a place to live, including working with legacy cities to ensure that new homes and business locations are in walkable, inclusive communities, but also by maintaining a national stockpile of modular homes and tiny communities on wheels and in modules that can quickly be trucked and/or flown in to disaster recovery situations, alongside emergency services pods that can provide carbon-free fuel-independent renew- able energy, clean drinking water, temporary mobile cooling centers for heat incident response, and other essential services such as sanitation hook-ups for immediate disaster response needs.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONThe Department of Education can seek to locate all of our nation’s schools in such a way that they can play an anchor role in the walkable town centers around which the communities we need must be re-built to become both more sustainable and more resilient.
Focus on re-tooling American public pre-K-12 education to learn from the decades of lessons of Experiential, Montessori, Waldorf, and other education reform movements. Focus on smaller-group experiences, on the integration of distance with in-person learning, on creating whole humans who are active members in creating and maintaining healthy, inclusive, resilient communities.
Focus on encouraging active lifestyles, not just by walking or biking to school, but also through recreational activities that emphasize building lifelong healthy habitats that include sufficient physical activity to maximize health as well as healthy diets that are supported by schools as active participants in local carbon-free food movements.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGYRe-define parking meters to include electric vehicle charging functionality: Fund the installation of urban on-street curbside electric vehicle charging infrastructure, to support every vehicle being able to park at every curb and plug in to charge using a single national standard.
Focus on supporting solar, wind, and power storage technology deployment in every building nationwide.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICESThe Department of Health & Human Services can seek to locate all of its operations in such a way that they occupy and support operations with distributed footprints rather than centralized ones, and can thus help to play an anchor role in the walkable town centers around which the communities we need must be re-built to become both more sustainable and more resilient.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITYFocus on supporting the resettling of climate migrants and refugees in receiver communities that are walkable, equitable, and inclusive.
FEMA can seek to support the establishment and maintenance of the walkable town centers around which the communities we need must be re-built to become both more sustainable and more resilient, including through programs to re-locate homes, businesses, and infrastructure out of high-hazard areas (such as flood zones and wildfire risk areas) into re-built walkable, mixed-income, inclusive communities.
FEMA can work on migration infrastructure, to support and facilitate climate migrants, refugees, and others, domestic and international, who may need a place to live, including working with legacy cities to ensure that new homes and business locations are in walkable, inclusive communities, but also by maintaining a national stockpile of modular homes and tiny communities on wheels and in modules that can quickly be trucked or flown in to disaster recovery situations, along- side emergency services pods that can provide carbon-free fuel-independent renewable energy, clean drinking water, temporary mobile cooling centers for heat incident response, and other essential services such as sanitation hook-ups for immediate disaster response needs.
Pivot from culverts to creating fish-friendly bridges (half-culverts, at the least) to support habitat restoration, flood resiliency, and species migration services.
Condition all funding on having a local (statewide, regional, and local municipal) climate adaptation plan that shows a pathway to achieving national carbon emissions reductions and sequestration goals by each interim target year.
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING & URBAN DEVELOPMENT
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING & URBAN DEVELOPMENTFocus on repurposing zoning and building codes, among other tools to support inclusion rather than exclusion, building walkable low-carbon communities, retrofitting and replacing existing buildings while using and producing as little carbon as possible and generating as much renewable energy, local food, local equitable economic support, and carbon sequestration as possible.
Focus on decarbonizing the construction industry, including by addressing construction waste by standardizing jobsite waste reduction, recycling and material re-use programs, as well as supporting shifts to renewable, carbon-free or carbon-sequestering products and construction methods. HUD can seek to support the establishment and maintenance of the walkable town centers around which the communities we need must be re-built to become both more sustainable and more resilient, including through programs to rebuild low-income housing into distributed, mixed-income housing that supports inclusive communities and does not concentrate poverty.
Support the development, maintenance, distribution, and deployment of open source software to help create the communities of the future that we need.
Condition all funding on having a local (statewide, regional, and local municipal) climate adaptation plan that shows a pathway to achieving national carbon emissions reductions and sequestration goals by each interim target year.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICEFocus on law as a tool to encourage the building of walkable communities as well as a transition towards carbon farming and sequestration, carbon emissions reductions and elimination, and equitable, inclusive communities free of fear of police and racial violence.
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
DEPARTMENT OF LABORSeek to center providing pathways to opportunity and generational wealth-building for all, through the provision of programs to support not just unions, but also cooperatives, employee-owned trusts and firms, and supportive infrastructure such as insurance pools that can reduce overhead costs and requirements.
The Department of Labor can seek to locate all of its operations in such a way that they occupy and support operations with distributed footprints rather than centralized ones, and can thus help to play an anchor role in the walkable town centers around which the communities we need must be re-built to become both more sustainable and more resilient.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Develop a NDC that sets an example for the world and commits the US to delivering the emissions reductions that the IPCC says we must achieve to limit warming to 1.5C by 2050.
Work with international partners to support the development, maintenance, distribution, and deployment of open source software to help create the communities of the future that we need.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIORAll of the land and water managed by DOI should be carbon-farmed, with the goal of the management of every acre be to restore and support its short, medium, and long range carbon sequestration capability, as well as its ability to support habitat corridors to facilitate wildlife migration patterns during an age of increasing climate impacts, to support the outdoor recreation demands of an increasing urban population, to center the role of first peoples as stewards of the land and to support this role and the land on which first peoples play a primary steward role, while also supporting a renewable economy through limited renewable harvesting of natural resources in certain lower-conservation-priority resource areas.
Condition all funding on having a local (statewide, regional, and local municipal) climate adaptation plan that shows a pathway to achieving national carbon emissions reductions and sequestration goals by each interim target year.
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURYSupport state, regional, and municipal banking efforts that will be critical to providing equitable access to the funding required for a successful just transition.
Support diversification of the monetary economy, including emerging options such as blockchain currencies and lending platforms.
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATIONRe-define parking meters to include electric vehicle charging functionality: Fund the installation of urban on-street curbside electric vehicle charging infrastructure, to support every vehicle being able to park at every curb and plug in to charge using a single national standard.
Fund the removal of roadway capacity through projects such as freeway removals and urban road redesigns as will be needed to right-size automobile infrastructure for the mode share it will need to support in the future, while creating the infrastructure needed to create and maintain complete walking, bicycling / micro-mobility, local transit, and high speed / national electric passenger and freight rail networks.
Support the development, maintenance, distribution, and deployment of open source software to help create the communities of the future that we need.
Condition all funding on having a local (statewide, regional, and local municipal) climate adaptation plan that shows a pathway to achieving national carbon emissions reductions and sequestration goals by each interim target year.
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRSA big focus should be on reducing systemic carbon emissions, such as those created by requiring clients to drive to hospitals for visits. The focus should be shifted to participating in the funding of a national public health infrastructure, one that allows veterans to use the health care providers closest to their home.
The VA can then seek to locate all of its operations in such a way that they occupy distributed footprints rather than centralized ones, and can thus help to play an anchor role in the walkable town centers around which the communities we need must be rebuilt to become both more sustainable and more resilient.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCYA clean fuels rule that mandates a shift to 100% renewable fuels by 2035, with heavy phasing in from 2025 to 2030, with specific policies and targets for biodiesel, renewable diesel, hydrogen, ethanol, butanol, and others.
A speed-up of urban cleanup efforts, with a focus on cleaning up ASAP to the maximum standard possible, then seeking to recover funds later (rather than the current fund-first, fix-later approach), and a focus on high-value properties, such as urban waterfronts, that could become key ingredients to the carbon-free economy of the future.
Focus on decarbonizing the construction industry, including by addressing construction waste by standardizing jobsite waste reduction, recycling and material re-use programs, as well as supporting shifts to renewable, carbon-free or carbon-sequestering products and construction methods.
THE FEDERAL RESERVE
THE FEDERAL RESERVEProvide support for state, regional, and municipal banks to lend to local green new deal initiatives, to ensure there is always sufficient credit available for capital projects, especially those desperately needed in the near term to enact a just transition within the timeframe specified (now and 2050, with heavy action in early years).
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGETEstablish, publish, and maintain carbon indexing standards Use these indexes to evaluate all federal expenditures, and seek to choose the alternative that produces the least carbon emissions through operations as well as lifetime.
Ensure that measures of urbanism are included in the screen used, including walkability, transit, and bicycling / micro-mobility modes, to ensure that every federal expenditure helps to create and sustain walkable communities as a part of a national commitment to living in 1-20 minute inclusive neighborhoods.
NASA
NASAA nationwide LIDAR geodataset, updated quarterly with archives kept and comparison statistics published, to allow for the establishment of baseline above-ground biomass measurements, and updating of these measurements regularly.