In the coming months, the Baker-Polito administration will further develop the set of policies and strategies that will guide Massachusetts’ response to the threats of climate change over the next decade.
Unveiled in December, the draft Interim Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2030 (CECP) is also meant to position the Commonwealth to take best advantage of the opportunities that will come from transitioning to a clean energy economy.
As the regional planning agency that serves Lynn and 100 other Greater Boston cities and towns, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) has analyzed the CECP with an eye toward its impact on the region’s environment, workforce, and economy.
While it outlines several critical pathways for mitigating the worst impacts of climate change over the next ten years, we believe that, as drafted, the plan misses some crucial opportunities to move the state toward an equitable and inclusive net zero emissions future.
Particularly in cities like Lynn – older urban centers that have long shouldered an outsized burden of pollution from a fossil fuel-powered society, the CECP’s gaps in equity, workforce development, and the treatment of land use and public transit must be remedied. MAPC urges the administration to set this right in its final plan.
In comments submitted last month, MAPC recommended that the administration make equity and environmental justice (EJ) central to each of the CECP’s proposed strategies. We cite recently completed MAPC research showing that the state cannot, in fact, achieve its climate goals without a robust strategy centered around smart land use policies and investment in public transportation, nor without dedicated funding sources to pay for new climate-friendly programs and initiatives.
We are confident that viewing climate action through an equity lens will ensure that places like Lynn don’t get left behind in the state’s necessary shift to a clean energy economy.
More than 80 percent of Lynn residents live in state-defined EJ neighborhoods: communities that have endured more than their fair share of the polluted air, water and soil associated with an ill-regulated industrial past. EJ communities are often characterized by scarce open space, and by homes and other buildings in need of efficiency upgrades to stem a tide of wasted energy and money.
MAPC’s recommendations would put these issues front and center in the state climate plan.
For example, while the administration’s proposals for reducing carbon emissions from transportation focus largely on expanding use of electric vehicles (EV), MAPC contends this approach misses the mark for communities such as Lynn. While supporting EV efforts, the state should give more weight to improved public transportation and strategic land use planning decisions. Just as the CECP should include rigorous, measurable tactics to ensure an equitable and just transition to a net zero future, the plan should also include measurable strategies for improving public transit infrastructure; increasing the use of transit, bicycles and walking; and encouraging land use that is transit-oriented and reduces the demand for personal vehicle trips which add to greenhouse gas emissions and local congestion.
As written, the CECP also lacks a comprehensive approach for developing a green and equitable workforce — such as targeted measures to support access for people of color and other demographic groups currently underrepresented in the state’s clean energy workforce.
This approach would resonate in Lynn, one of the Commonwealth’s 26 gateway cities — previously thriving centers of industry that have recently faced stubborn social and economic challenges stemming from a decline in local manufacturing.
Lynn residents and businesses would profit from provisions to ensure equity and inclusion in the economic activity and job growth associated with making old buildings ultra-energy efficient, while keeping them affordable and installing onsite solar and other climate-smart building technologies.
To fund these and other actions necessary to realize the state’s climate and clean energy targets, MAPC supports using a variety of tactics including the development of a statewide “climate bank.”
Prioritizing the financing of transformative climate and energy technologies, as well as regional or multi-municipal climate resilience projects — especially in EJ communities — the new climate bank could be initially capitalized through federal recovery funds or state revenues.
Regardless of the financing option, it should be structured to minimize impact on low-income individuals and maximize investments in underserved and overburdened communities.
MAPC looks forward to collaborating with the Baker administration, the legislature and our municipal partners to advance these and other necessary programs and policies as Massachusetts steers a course to a near-term net zero emissions future.
Rebecca Davis is Deputy Director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
