Salt Lake City Publishes Plan to Tackle Climate Change and Carbon Pollution
Climate Positive plan prioritizes regional collaboration, community participation, and innovation to reduce pollution and enhance local resilience to warming temperatures.
Salt Lake City has released a comprehensive plan entitled Climate Positive 2040, detailing ways the Capitol City will sustain its leadership role in addressing climate change.
On January 12, 2017, Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski signed the Sustainable Infrastructure Executive Order, calling for citywide collaboration on sustainability.
Salt Lake City and Salt Lake Chamber partner on the Third Annual Skyline Challenge to accelerate commercial building energy efficiency
As part of her mission to improve air quality, reduce carbon emissions, and form strong partnerships with the business community, Mayor Jackie Biskupski is pleased to launch the Third Annual Skyline Challenge—this year with the Salt Lake Chamber joining the roster of partners.
The annual Skyline Challenge is a voluntary program to accelerate investment in energy efficiency from large commercial buildings and raise public awareness of building energy performance while creating jobs and fostering a stronger local economy.
As part of Salt Lake City’s commitment to pursuing cost-effective measures to reduce air pollution, Mayor Jackie Biskupski transmitted to the City Council an energy benchmarking and tune-up ordinance for large commercial buildings, which the Council will consider today during their work session.
The proposed market-based ordinance would eliminate over 98 tons of criteria pollutants from Salt Lake City’s air each year by phasing-in new requirements for buildings over 25,000 square feet to “benchmark” their energy usage annually, using the EPA’s free ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager software, followed by energy “tune-ups” for low-performing buildings.
Benchmarking allows building owners and managers to identify if their buildings are good candidates for efficiency improvements to reduce energy waste—and therefore air pollution. The free Portfolio Manager® program also gives buildings an energy score from 1 to 100, with anything 75 or over considered to be high-performing.
Buildings would then report their ENERGY STAR score to Salt Lake City.
by Kyle Strayer
The winter season is in full force this year in Utah, with above-average snowfall and chilly temps all along the Wasatch Front.
You might think all this snow means the end of biking season, but with just a few changes in your habits, you can continue to travel on two wheels year-round.
Read on for our guide to staying safe, warm, and happy while commuting or riding for fun during the colder months: Continue reading
The beginning of a new year is a good time to take note of all the achievements we’ve made over the past 12 months. It was a banner year for Sustainability in SLC– from our office becoming a full Department, to launching a new market program, to establishing ambitious clean energy goals.
We publish an annual report detailing our major accomplishments for the year. You can read the highlights from 2016 below, or download the full report here.
Thank you to our many partners who’ve helped us along the way. And happy New Year from all of us at SLCgreen!
As we’ve discussed previously, we think cities are hotbeds of sustainability solutions.
Here’s another example from our friends to the south: Provo’s Clean Air Toolkit.
In 2014, Provo was awarded a grant by Utah Clean Air Partnership (UCAIR) to pursue this project. The toolkit’s goal is to present local residents and businesses with a centralized list of strategies they can use to achieve cleaner air in Utah County, and to make clean air the common goal of Provo City’s strategic planning and operations.
You can check it out at www.provocleanair.org. As you’ll see, it offers a comprehensive guide for individuals, businesses, and municipalities to use to reduce air pollutants, as well as helpful statistics and infographics detailing projections for air quality over the next few decades.
You may remember how excited we were to collaborate with Utah Clean Energy and the University of Utah on the second round of U Drive Electric this fall.
The goal: Get more EV’s on the road to promote cleaner air.
The how: By spreading the word about the limited-time bulk discounts available through the University of Utah’s innovative program.
Over the course of September and October, we worked with the U. and Utah Clean Energy to speak with hundreds of people about what “going electric” really means– including how cost-effective owning an electric vehicle is.
Now that this round has wrapped up, we’re excited to announce that 127 electric vehicles were purchased through U Drive Electric II!
When combined with Round I there are now over 200 new electric vehicles on the road thanks to U Drive Electric. These new EV owners have taken an important step towards improving air quality along the Wasatch Front.
Testimonials from U Drive Electric participants can be found at utahev.org
Salt Lake City Climate Warming at Twice the Global Average; Continues to Break Temperature Records
In a show of broad cooperation and commitment to addressing one of the most pressing needs of our time, Mayor Jackie Biskupski on Tuesday joined 32 other mayors from cities around the United States in asking President-elect Donald Trump to work with cities, rather than obstruct their efforts, to mitigate climate change over the coming years.
“We write today to ask for your partnership in our work to clean our air, strengthen our economy, and ensure that our children inherit a nation healthier and better prepared for the future than it is today,” the letter stated.
Mayors of cities as diverse as Dubuque, IA; Columbia, SC; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Charlotte, NC; and more, representing over 35 million citizens in both red and blue states, signed on to the letter. Together, they reiterated the grave risks to our nation’s economy, public health, infrastructure, and environment by failing to reduce emissions.
“Each month, we see a new heat record breaking for the Salt Lake City area,” said Mayor Jackie Biskupski. “Climate change is real. It’s impacting our communities right now. And we’re calling for the President-elect to join with us to ensure a livable future for our children.”
This summer, Salt Lake City had 21 consecutive days over 95 degrees, the warmest nighttime low ever recorded at 81 degrees, and the warmest June since 1874. This summer, the capital city also broke 3 high maximum records, 14 high minimums, and 17 total heat records.
More recently, Salt Lake City broke the record for the latest frost date. After 242 days, on November 17, 2016, the airport finally hit 32 degrees—setting another record for the number of consecutive days above freezing.
Local bodies of water have also suffered. In mid-July, a toxic algal bloom on Utah Lake—caused, in part, by high water temperatures and low water levels—closed the lake, sickened more than 100 people, and put dozens of farmers in Utah and Salt Lake counties in a bind during one of the hottest weeks of the year.
Emergencies like this are not just inconvenient; they cost cities, private citizens, state agencies, and businesses money. The coalition cited a recent estimate that the monetary cost to the American economy of climate change will be upward of $500 billion annually by 2050.
Knowing these risks, Salt Lake City is already taking aggressive action to reduce emissions. Earlier this year, Mayor Biskupski and the City Council passed one of the most aggressive energy policies in the nation, pledging to source 100 percent of Salt Lake City’s community-wide electricity needs from renewables by 2032, and pledging to reduce overall carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2040.
In the days since the Presidential election, Mayor Biskupski repeated Salt Lake City’s commitment to overall environmental sustainability and emissions reductions. “As a city warming at twice the global average in recent decades, while also suffering from poor wintertime and summertime air, we must lead by example. Nothing is more important than the air we breathe–and, knowing we have as many inhalers as lunch boxes in our city schools, we do not have time to waste.”
The letter furthermore calls for leadership from the Trump administration on everything from transit, infrastructure, and renewable energy to the Paris Climate Agreement, and urges cooperation with cities on those fronts.
However, as the mayors conclude: “While we are prepared to forge ahead even in the absence of federal support, we know that if we stand united on this issue, we can make change that will resonate for generations. We have no choice and no room to doubt our resolve. The time for bold leadership and action is now.”
The letter to President-elect Trump was signed by member cities of the Mayors Climate Action Agenda (MNCAA), or the #ClimateMayors, and can be viewed here: http://www.climate-mayors.org/our-letter-to-the-presidentelect-november-2016/
In a joint press conference, the University of Utah and Salt Lake City today announced the launch of an electric vehicle purchase program extending discounts on multiple makes and models of vehicles. The second round of U Drive Electric offers U community members and Salt Lake City community members the opportunity to purchase or lease electric and plug-in-hybrid vehicles at discounted prices through Oct. 31, 2016.
This joint program is aimed at improving air quality and community health both today and for future generations. With almost 50 percent of Utah’s urban air pollution coming from tailpipe emissions, electric vehicles represent an important tool for improving air quality along the Wasatch Front.
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