Even if
you’ve never been to Paris, the cab ride from Charles de Gaulle Airport to the
center of the city would likely be a familiar scene to most Bostonians — it’s a
lot like Boston’s southeast expressway during rush hour.
Traffic
congestion is thick, forcing vehicles to move at a snail’s — or perhaps an
escargot — pace here. The morning drive-time radio, French style, is on, and
one of the main topics this week is, of course, climate change.
World
leaders are meeting for the second week in Paris in an attempt to negotiate an
international agreement to deal with climate change, and urban areas are at the
frontlines of the fight.
Tackling
Climate Change By Thinking Globally, Acting Locally
At the
ornate Hotel de Ville — City Hall in Paris — the mayor of Paris has been
playing host to officials from cities around the world.
Featured
speaker Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s The Earth Institute,
told local leaders that national government officials negotiating a global
climate treaty don’t understand the nuts and bolts of adapting a city’s
infrastructure to climate change.
"After
the agreement is reached, who’s going to be the first to start implementing
that? It’s going to be the mayors at their desks the next morning, because they
have to make contracts with utilities. They have to decide where the next road
is going to go, how public transports going to work, what kind of vehicles are
going to be riding on the streets of the cities,” Sachs said. "So literally
where the rubber hits the road is the world’s cities.”
Boston is
among those cities leading by way of example on how a local government can
prepare for a future in whichclimate change requires a transformation of
urban infrastructure.
Austin
Blackmon
, Boston’s
chief of environment, energy and open space, came to the summit in Paris to
receive a prestigious
C40 award
— beating out Melbourne and New
York City in an award category that praises a city’s ability to engage
residents in planning for climate change.
"The city
of Boston was very, very thankful to win the award,” Blackmon said. "We hope in
future years other cities will get recognized for copying
those ideas
.”
It’s a
quick five-hour flight from Boston to Paris, 3,235 miles as the seagull flies.
A few days before he left for Paris, I met with Blackmon in Christopher
Columbus Park, a few feet away from Boston Harbor.
When it
comes to climate change, it’s clear the planet is in the same boat. However,
different cities face difference challenges.
"Hopefully
coming out of Paris we’ll have an agreement that will incentivize all of the
nations of the world to take drastic action, but if we don’t do enough then
there’s a chance that areas like this will be subject to flooding on a
twice-daily basis,” Blackmon said.
Boston
set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 and 80
percent by mid-century. The city is on target, with a 17 percent reduction in
just a decade. Boston pioneered an innovative funding mechanism to retrofit its
321 municipal buildings. The city used savings from energy efficiencies to pay
off loans for the improvements.
Now,
Boston is helping cities of a similar size in China prepare for climate change.
"That’s
really, really important, because as much work as we’ve done here in Boston —
as great as that is — if we can help Chinese cities avoid a ton of CO2, the
number of people that live in China on a per capita basis, if we can influence
that change, that affects us globally as well,” Blackmon said. "And so we can
really multiple our impact.”
Boston’s
Energy Past And Future Through In One Scope
The
effects of climate change are not abstract or academic — they’re real. And
they’re happening now. From a balcony at the Wheatley Building found on the
University of Massachusetts, Boston campus, a university dean explains how the
results of climate change can be seen with ease.
"What I
love about this view is that it captures the story of climate change in almost
all of its pieces,” said David Cash, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of
Policy and Global Studies. He was also preparing to head to the climate summit
when we met.
"So here we are looking at the bay overlooking
Morrissey Boulevard, which already is flooding at high tides on a regular
basis,” he said. "You can hear that when you hear the morning traffic reports,
and we’re at ground zero where the impacts of climate change are going to be.”
Cash sets
up a small telescope, and with it, the past, present and future of the Greater
Boston area’s energy supply appears from the balcony. Nearby is National Grid’s
colorful liquefied natural gas tank. Natural gas burns cleaner than oil or
coal, but it’s still a fossil fuel. It’s used to generate 45 percent of the
region’s electricity. But Cash said it’s a transitional bridge to a renewable
future.
Just
behind the tank is a small solar installation. Statewide, solar energy has
increased 300-fold in just eight years.
Further
out are two commercial wind turbines in Hull, and Cash predicts soon there will
be offshore wind farms and electric cars with "smartchips” driving roadways.
"So when
you plug them in at night, that chip will say ‘only fill my battery when the
price of electricity is below 3 cents. And when they park, you’re going to be
able to plug in there and that chip is going to be able to say ‘sell back to
the grid when it’s 7 cents a kilowatt hour.’ So you’re going to be making
money.
Call it
climate change capitalism. Today, there are 5,000 clean energy companies in the
New England area, employing roughly 100,000 workers.
"That’s
what’s been incredible about this,” Cash said, "is that we’ve been investing in
ways that are saving people money. So this whole notion that you can’t move to
the clean energy future without hurting the economy is a lie. Moving to the
clean energy future is one that will bring economic benefits and economic
advantages.”
The
Eiffel Tower lights up with the slogan "Action Now” referring to the COP21,
United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris on Sunday. (Michel Euler/AP)
By
evening in Paris, some booksellers along the Seine have shuttered their shops.
In the distance, the Eiffel Tower is aglow with 20,000 energy efficient bulbs
powered in part by four vertical wind turbines hidden in the steel lattice, as
well as solar panels on the visitor center.
Today,
the world’s most visited monument uses 30 percent less electricity than it did
a decade ago. By next year, companies that want to provide the City of Light
municipality with electricity will have to supply 100 percent of it from green,
renewable sources.
WBUR’s
Bruce Gellerman is reporting from Paris, where he is attending a United
Nations-funded climate media fellowship.
(www.wbur.org)