Since we last evaluated cities’ efforts to improve energy efficiency, ramp up renewable energy, and integrate equity into their activities, a lot has changed. Our 2019 City Clean Energy Scorecard assessed cities on their work through March 2019, but we’ve since seen more announcements from cities about how they’re addressing climate change – from building efficiency policies to plans for electric vehicles and more. Those developments are sure to have an effect on our upcoming rankings. Here’s a sampling:
- Detroit released its first Sustainable Action Agenda. In doing so, it set goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ramp up energy savings and renewable energy use, and mitigate urban heat islands.
- Los Angeles developed and released its Green New Deal, which includes goals to reduce vehicle-miles-traveled per capita and to increase efficient modes of transport like walking and biking.
- The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors paved the way for the City-County Task Force on Climate and Economic Equity. The Task Force is making recommendations on how to meet the city’s emissions reductions goals and mitigate racial and income inequity.
- The Philadelphia City Council passed an ordinance making sure large nonresidential buildings are high performing, and requiring tune-ups if they aren’t.
- Providence and its Racial and Environmental Justice Committee—composed mostly of community members—released a Climate Justice Plan with climate equity objectives and more than 50 strategies to create an equitable, low-carbon city.
- St. Louis’s Board of Aldermen adopted a building performance standard to tackle energy use in large existing buildings.
Other cities have also taken steps on energy efficiency, renewable energy, and environmental justice. But how does it all stack up? Which cities are showing the most ambition, and which are taking steps to center equity in their work? Three years after mayors from around the country banded together to say they were "still in" for the Paris Climate Agreement, who is doing the best and who has climbed—or fallen—in our rankings since last year?
Our 2020 scorecard, set for publication on October 6, has the answers. You can register now for our webinar, at 11:00 am ET that morning where we’ll present the results. Stay tuned.
