Charlotte is slow to let us know its progress on specific climate goals | Opinion
Editor’s note: Five other members of Charlotte’s SEAP Accountability Committee signed on to this op-ed: Dean Kluesner, Tina Katsanos, Jerome Wagner, Nancy Carter and Jeff Robbins.
It seems like every day, there are new warnings about the accelerating speed of climate change and its harmful impacts. Recently, a well-respected health journal, The Lancet, issued this dire warning about heat (as summarized by Climate Nexus): “Deaths caused by excessive heat could increase by 370% by the end of the century if the world continues warming at the pace it’s currently on.”
If you have lived in Charlotte more than 10 years, you’ve probably felt this increase, with less snow in the winter and longer and hotter summers.
Reports like this underscore the need for faster action by our local, state and federal leaders to slow climate change and mitigate its impacts. The City of Charlotte is indeed taking steps to counter harmful climate impacts. Its 2018 Strategic Energy Action Plan (SEAP) lays out goals to reduce carbon emissions in buildings, transportation and energy used in city operations. In a great step forward, the city Office of Sustainability and Resilience was recently elevated to a standalone office, reporting directly to the city manager.
We are grateful for this strong evidence that climate action is now a higher priority for our city. We believe that pressure from local citizens has helped elevate the importance of climate action in the city.
Those of us on the SEAP Accountability Committee, a subset of concerned citizens called the Charlotte Mecklenburg Climate Leaders, have been meeting with city staff since early 2022 to urge the achievement of the original 2018 goals. Before then, many of us were meeting with the City in their Content Group Meetings, also urging on achievement. We plan to continue to meet and take account of the City progress toward its goals, and are thankful for the relationship we have built with the city’s Chief Sustainability and Resiliency Officer, Sarah Hazel. It is energizing to see our city being responsive in this way.
But it is five years into the SEAP and we, representing the concerned citizens of Charlotte, do not have a clear idea of how far along we are in achieving the zero-carbon goal for city operations by 2030.
Among other things, the SEAP Committee has been asking for a comprehensive dashboard to show progress on renewable energy installations, building efficiency and energy reduction, and the rate of conversion of city vehicles to electric vehicles. For example, how many vehicles does the City have, how many are fully electric, and what is the yearly plan for purchasing and upgrading to show that all of them will be EVs by 2030? This information is not yet in the dashboard.
Yes, those of us on the SEAP Committee are impatient. We know that climate solutions are at hand, but we need the collective political will to implement them.
We know that science confirms the rapid progress of impacts like increased severe weather, warmer days and life-threatening heat and more frequent floods. Now that the Sustainability Office is directly in the city manager’s purview, our message to city leaders is that we want to see a rapid transformation of City operations that actually achieve the original 2018 goal “to have City fleet and facilities be fueled by 100% zero-carbon sources by 2030.”
We know that external factors like supply chain and technological changes are hard to predict and that Duke Energy’s grid mix is out of our direct control, but we know this goal is attainable and that full attainment is required. We continue to be ready to help, and hope that all who read this will do their part to pitch in for a zero carbon future as well.