Carbon Capture and Storage Offers Potential for Climate Mitigation

One of the most discussed options for climate mitigation revolves around carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Significant capital has been invested into various CCS options, with a number of notable advances potentially offering credible solutions for carbon mitigation. The Reserve recently held an NACW 2020 Virtual Series webinar exploring the latest technological developments in the CCS arena, the applications that seem to have the best potential for commercialization, challenges that still need to be resolved and the latest on the economics of CCS, among other issues.

Below are some insights that we gained from panelists: JP Brisson, Partner, Latham & Watkins; Steve Bohlen, Program Manager, Energy and Homeland Security, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Maris Densmore, Manager of Carbon Capture Solutions, California Resources Corporation; Julio Friedmann, Senior Research Scholar, Center for Global Energy Policy, Columbia University; and Beth (Hardy) Valiaho, VP, Strategy & Stakeholder Relations, International CCS Knowledge Centre.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the technological process of capturing carbon dioxide, often from large point sources such as power plants and refineries, compressing it as a liquid, and injecting it in deep underground geologic formations for permanent sequestration.

Climate scientists highlight CCS as a key tool to achieving deep decarbonization and net zero goals, and its success in reducing criteria pollutants

“If you really want to get to deep decarbonization, if you want to get to net zero, CCS is required. There are many, many studies that support this, including from the International Energy Agency and the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. If you don’t have CCS, 50% of the models fail. They simply can’t solve what needs to be solved. And all of the two degree scenarios have a lot of CCS. If you have a 1.5 degree model, they not only have a lot of CCS, but they also have a lot of CO2 removal using things like bioenergy with CCS, or direct air capture with CCS,” said Julio Friedmann.

“Data on how CCS, especially post combustion CCS, impacts criteria pollutants exists and we know it from projects like Boundary Dam and Petra Nova in the US. It is generally the case that you see something like a 90 or 95% drop in criteria pollutants following post combustion retrofits. And in some cases, certain kinds of pollutants get even more profound drops, well beyond 99% reduction,” said Julio Friedmann.

“We actually get 100% of the SO2 off of the Boundary Dam facility, which is like acid rain. You have to get that out before you can even access CO2. 50% of the nitrous oxide is also removed from a separate process. And then you’re getting large amounts of particulate matter 2 and 2.5 and particulate matter 10. So this is something that, for instance, Asia is really looking at, because they’re looking to clean up the air before they even get to the fact that they’re cleaning up their CO2 in a lot of their coal plants. So sometimes we get asked about CCS application, just to clean up those things,” said Beth Valiaho.

CCS is not limited to coal

“A lot of people think about CCS as a specific kind of power technology, like it’s good for coal. That is simply not the case. If you look at a place like California, which is already extremely clean, the biggest levers you can pull are all CCS levers: natural gas capture in the power sector, light duty vehicle fuel reduction through the LCFS using CCS, and CCS on industry. So think about this like a Swiss Army knife, it can be applied in many sectors and to many positive ends,” said Julio Friedmann.

“Under the International Energy Agency Sustainable Development Scenario, 10 billion tons of CO2 needs to be captured from iron and steel, five billion tons from cement, and 14 billion tons from the chemicals industry. So there’s a lot of work to be done. And let’s not forget there’s also the option to get negative emissions and we see that coming out of the IPCC scenarios with bioenergy CCS,” said Beth Valiaho.

Facilities around the world are already doing CCS and costs are dropping

“This is proven and demonstrated. The Boundary Dam coal power plant has carbon capture on it. It’s the world’s first operating commercial scale CCS facility and has been operating since 2014. If you can clean up coal, you can clean up anything. With the Boundary Dam facility, it’s a post combustion capture. Coal is the dirtiest emission out there. You have to separate all the different particles, then you finally can access the CO2. Once we access the CO2, we compress it into a supercritical liquid, and put it under the ground. We’ve proven it. We’ve understood it. We’ve de-risked it. We can capture two million tons per year capacity at $45 US. In terms of capture, the Boundary Dam Plant has the ability to capture 90% of the emissions off the coal plant, making it much cleaner than any switch to natural gas combined cycle facility right now,” said Beth Valiaho.

“The technology is established. We’ve been capturing CO2 from industrial facilities since 1938. We’ve been doing deep injection and disposal of CO2 since 1972. We’ve run CCS projects just for climate benefits since 1996. Almost all of that has actually been done at industrial facilities, and so it’s important to realize that, again, this has a broad application base,” said Julio Friedmann. “One of the biggest CCS projects in the world and in the country is at an ethanol plant at Archer Daniels Midland in Decatur, Illinois. That project injects about a million tons of CO2 a year. And, in fact, cuts the carbon footprint of that fuel by 50%, so there’s a big carbon reduction associated with this. There are hundreds of ethanol plants around the country where the capture cost is very low, on the order of $20 or $30 a ton, and in those contexts, that’s low hanging fruit.”

“There are these low hanging fruit options, which are below $50 a ton. And we can get a certain amount of that today, say, using the 45Q tax credit. For other things like cement or natural gas power, the cost is incrementally higher. Since 2009, we now have 20 projects around the world. We have 12 companies offering technology that they can use to do the decarbonising. We have learning by doing. We have performance guarantees. We have technology advancements. And all of these have led to cost reductions,” said Julio Friedmann.

Location, location, location

“We’ve got a lot of options for storing carbon. The most common one is in saline formation. These are deep geologic formations that contain water with high concentrations of dissolved solids. These are very deep waters (minimum of 800 meters deep) and not something that humans are ever going to need or going to access. These locations are ubiquitous. They’re everywhere, but a lot of work is required when you actually want to potentially look at permanent sequestration. Another location is oil and gas fields. And this can be done through enhanced oil recovery, which is where a lot of the CCS to date has happened, where you inject CO2 into the reservoir to maintain pressure as you’re taking out oil and natural gas, you’re putting CO2 in to support that extraction, and also to permanently sequester the CO2. We know that they can actually hold the CO2 because, in some cases for millions of years, they’ve been holding methane and oil and other hydrocarbons. So these are a good place to do it, but they’re not quite as widespread. Some of the slightly less common options are in coal seams—you can inject CO2 into coal seams and the coal geochemically binds to the CO2 and so you get geochemical sequestration,” said Maris Densmore.

“(Regarding appropriate geologic formations) One place to look is where the world’s oil fields are, where Mother Nature has held hydrocarbons for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years. We know those are pretty good containers to hold supercritical, or liquid, CO2. It turns out that in California, Mother Nature has been particularly kind. California exemplifies some of the best places around the planet to store CO2. And that is in relatively young sedimentary basins. In the central US and in California, there are very large sedimentary basins. They’re quite young—they are several million to a few, tens of millions years old. They have high porosity, a lot of pore space and they have good permeability, so you can inject the fluids relatively easily. Some of the best geology in the world is in California where some formations have 35 – 40% pore space. Globally, you look for oil and gas fields and sedimentary basins where there are interbedded sandstone—those are the rocks that typically have high porosity and permeability, and then, shales, compressed mud stones and so forth that actually seal the reservoirs and prevent migration of the fluids from escaping from the reservoir that they are intended to be injected into. North America has some of the best geology. Those are the needed features: young sedimentary basins, interbedded sandstones and shales of some thickness, and, of course, the world’s oil and gas fields,” said Steve Bohlen.

Addressing potential concerns for CCS

“We need to have education and time for the public to understand the depth and robustness of this technology, and the fact that it’s been proven throughout the world. And that, I think, will go a long way to gaining some public acceptance, as they understand this is a technology not terribly different from wind and solar, and other new technologies that are critical for our climate future,” said Steve Bohlen.

“As governments and regulatory bodies start to get serious about this, they establish protocols for what is becoming a more familiar term, which is reservoir surveillance. Monitoring is a very important part so that one actually knows that what you think is going to happen in the subsurface is actually happening. The good news is, if there is a well-chosen site, one that is well characterized and well understood through seismic surveys and other geophysical surveys, one can have pretty high confidence that the CO2 compressed as a liquid is going to stay there. It has a lot of the physical characteristics of oil. And we know that geology can contain fluids for millions of years, so it’s not a great surprise that we have fairly high confidence. And the 20 or so CCS projects around the world have confirmed this,” said Steve Bohlen.

Join us Thursday, June 11 for our next NACW 2020 Virtual Series webinar – Taking Full Stock: Opportunities and Challenges around Reforestation

The webinar recording of the NACW 2020 Virtual Series: Carbon Capture and Storage: Promising Developments on the Horizon discussion is now available!

Join us for the next NACW 2020 Virtual Series webinar this Thursday, June 4 – Carbon Capture and Storage: Promising Developments on the Horizon?

Research and markets help the potential for climate solutions on natural working lands – notes from the New Frontier: Natural Working Lands webinar

Carbon markets have been limited in utilizing carbon credits in natural working lands, in large part because the state of science and technology made carbon projects on such lands cost prohibitive. But research and markets are both pointing to natural working lands solutions, such as regenerative agriculture and forestry, as potential powerhouse climate change solutions that could deliver significant emissions reductions while generating more benefits for the agriculture sector, food supply, soil health and forest ecosystems. And now cutting edge developments in technology, such as remote sensing and machine learning, have begun to change the narrative.

The Climate Action Reserve hosted a panel discussion on the potential for climate solutions on natural working lands and ways technological innovations are making that potential become reality featuring pioneering leaders in the field of ag carbon: Robert Parkhurst, Sierra View Consulting; Chris Adamo, Vice President Federal and Industry Affairs, Danone North America; Adam Chambers, Scientist, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service; Dan Harburg, Vice President, Head of Carbon Quantification, Indigo Ag; and Philip Taylor, Executive Director & Co-Founder, Mad Agriculture. Here are key takeaways from the discussion:

The agriculture community is making big climate commitments and embarking on new collaborative climate initiatives

“Danone is looking at a global commitment of carbon neutrality by 2050. We also have a science-based target of 30% absolute reduction by 2030 as well. And so we have to think about our supply chain, and the agriculture and farmers that provide the commodities to those supply chains. It’s our biggest source of emissions, but also our biggest source of opportunity and solutions to find the emission reductions that we need to get,” said Chris Adamo, Danone North America. “In 2018, we launched a soil health initiative and started to voluntarily enroll farmers within our U.S. supply chain. We’re now entering year three of that initiative and we are over 50,000 acres and just under 40 producers, including over 2 dozen dairies, and cropland and some producers that are not dairies. We’re going through a benchmarking process with those producers, looking at a field by field site-specific, data-centric evaluation of operations. That’s the centerpiece of how we’re working with our U.S. supply chain to get to greenhouse gas emission reductions that we can quantify and account for. Another key part of our overall climate strategy is Horizon Organic, which is one of our key brands. It has over 600 farms in the U.S. in its supply chain and back in March we announced a carbon positive initiative with a commitment to be carbon neutral and above or beyond by 2025. So that’s pretty ambitious.”

“We work partnering directly with farmers to try to help improve farm sustainability, improve grower profitability as well as consumer health. We launched our Indigo Carbon program about a year ago with the goal of trying to bring growers into a carbon marketplace where they would be able to shift their management practices, quantify the amount of carbon that they’re reducing, and then be able to sell offsets or tie that carbon footprint change directly to the grain that they’re transacting in our marketplace. Over the past year, we’ve had about 18 million acres worth of growers express interest in joining the program. We have contracts right now with about 7.5 million acres of those growers,” said Dan Harburg, Indigo Ag.

New resources, tools, technologies, and systems approach help make climate smart agriculture possible and profitable

“There is potential for growers to earn additional revenue from climate positive or emissions reduced products. Indigo operates a series of online marketplaces that help growers transact their grain and find buyers who will pay for unique attributes inherent in the grains and fibers that these growers are producing. Our digital marketplace tools play really well together with better quantification offerings to growers. We help growers think about ways to reduce their emissions footprint and then ways to transact those grains,” said Dan Harburg, IndigoAg.

“Ten, fifteen years ago we were talking about, well, if everybody just did no till, then it became let’s look at the four R’s, and then it became let’s look at cover crops, how do we get double digit participation across this country on cover crops. And those are also very relevant management practices. But now we’re thinking about systems approaches. We’re thinking about how do you couple those management changes so that you can get not just the biggest environmental impact for things like greenhouse gas or water but find those economic efficiencies as well. Can you lower your input? Can you build a more resilient cropland? We’re a lot more sophisticated as a community now than we were 10 years ago. There’s been decades of science and learnings on these things. None of the pieces are new necessarily – a few things here and there maybe like a reactor saturated buffer – but when you put all this together and think about it, a system coupled with a layer of data that we actually understand, that opens up a whole new set of opportunities about how to work with a farm in a very efficient and productive way,” said Chris Adamo.

The field of data science and technology is growing, but there are challenges and more work to be done

“We’ve seen the opportunities for things like remote sensing technologies to be able to minimize the burden of what questions we have to ask of a grower or to simplify the monitoring and verification process, for example to check if a cover crop was indeed planted or to be able to check when a crop is harvested. We’re also starting to see some really interesting technologies that could reduce the complexity of collecting soil samples and processing soil data, which ultimately will be a really key part of these markets. That’s an area that I hope continues to get more attention from the scientific and entrepreneurial community because we’re still at a point where we’re using 50 – 70 year old techniques for analyzing soil samples. So I think those are some of the areas where technology has started to come into play but we certainly have more work to do,” said Dan Harburg.

“There are large research gaps that still exist that are not well understood that at the moment have been preventing progress in a lot of agricultural climate markets. We have contributed to that scientific knowledge base by helping to develop some of our own experimental resources internally to look at how is carbon interacting in deeper soil layers, what practices are tied to what kinds of emissions reductions and soil health changes, how do we think about permanence within agricultural soils. We’ve also looked to partner with a number of scientific organizations around the world to build off the research that they’re already doing, sharing the data that we’re gathering from our farms, and hopefully engaging in a really active scientific search right now for better answers that we think will unlock these markets going forward,” said Dan Harburg.

“We’re working really closely with CSU and Yale to create a cost-effective measuring and monitoring platform with known accuracy. We’ve been working on that for the last year on our Nori pilot farms. We have a little over 10,000 acres in that pilot launch,” said Philip Taylor, Mad Agriculture.

“These are dynamic land systems and how a crop land operates in California versus Kansas versus Michigan are all a little different. We have different soil types, different gradients, different climates. How a cover crop operates or doesn’t operate is all going to depend right on the locality that you’re working on. So these are complex dynamic systems – durability, permanence all very challenging issues,” said Chris Adamo.

“We’re also dealing with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of individual businesses across the United States. We’re asking millions of individual businesses to think about their operating system and how to fundamentally change them in some cases. For Danone, we have over 700 dairy farms that we procure milk from – this is a challenge and an opportunity for us. The company made a fundamental change in its procurement strategy over the last 10 years to know its farmer, to develop those direct relationships because we want the certainty. But without that relationship, it’s a very difficult if not impossible thing to do. You can’t just put out a regulatory marker and say all you millions of farmers across this country meet that regulatory standard. It just will not work like that. We’ve all got to think about the individual specificity of those farms and what their needs are and what their opportunities are,” said Chris Adamo.

“There are a ton of outstanding scientific questions that need to be answered through experimental work–migration of carbon in soil layers and certainly permanence. And there are also new emerging technologies that could accelerate the rates of sequestration or of a reduction in inputs through microbial technology, through other soil amendments, through biochar. And we still have a lot of work to do to understand which of those work and what are the conditions under which they work,” said Dan Harburg.

Tips for getting new farmers on board: community of practice, access to capital, and access to markets

“We have three levers of change that we surround the farm ecosystem with to get moving. The first is the community of practice that the farmer is participating in. Where’s the wisdom coming from? What are the grassroot organizations that provide on the ground support. Farmers listen to farmers foremost and it’s critical that trust network is in place. The second lever of change is access to capital. We designed farm plans to liberate Farm Bill dollars with Equip and CSP and everything else that the Farm Bill’s positioned to help farmers with,” said Phlip Taylor. “The last lever of change that we work with is access to markets both for crops and for ecosystem services. We work really hard so the farmers that we work with don’t sell at the grain elevator anymore where they’re exposed to the bottom line brutality of commodity markets. We work on diversifying the crops, moving into specialties, creating direct relationships with brands and buyers that want that kind of virtuous supply chain from soil to shelf where you can drive a win-win value prop for both the farmer and the brand.”

NRCS resources and carbon / ecosystem markets (which can develop in concert with growing scientific data) can be an economic and environmental solution for growers

“We can move atmospheric carbon into soils but how do we quantify it? What we deliver from the USDA is the science. We want to deliver the best science to everybody. There’s nobody else that’s making an effort to build a 600-page book about how to quantify entity scale greenhouse gas emissions for everybody to use. We’re trying to help the farmers, help the land, and get the economics right for the growers. And so we want to see carbon markets succeed. We also want to see a lot of the insetting mechanisms succeed,” said Adam Chambers, USDA. “We’ve invested in trying to give every farmer in the United States the opportunity to look at and analyze their greenhouse gas emissions. We recognize that’s not often in their wheelhouse, but we avail the tools to them. We’ve got quantification tools. We’ve got financial programs. We’ve got technical assistance. And really at the end of the day we want the farmers to be empowered.”

“It’s not clear if the conservation practices that create drawdown are profitable all the time. And so when you show up on a farm and talk about doing a cover crop to create drawdown, the farmer is like ‘I grow food, not carbon.’ Integrating a cover crop for the sake of climate change isn’t the first thing that a farmer is thinking about. If we’re putting the onus on farmers to solve climate change, we have to wrap it up deeply into their economics. We often talk about the profitability of adopting regenerative practices, whether it’s compost or cover cropping or adding a longer perennial rotation or moving to no till, all of these things have to pencil out on the balance sheet first and then the conversation on carbon can happen in a more robust way,” said Philip. “We generally see less than a third of a ton of carbon per acre per year in our best systems. And that’s when we’re really giving it a go. It reiterates the need for all of us to be doing exactly what we’re doing as a community and and staying in the conversation together.”

“We all want to move in the same direction–some of us call it regenerative, some of us call it drawdown, some of us want to work only in organic, some of us want to work in conventional crops. We can all do this together. We’re all working in the same direction. In this difficult time for our world and our country, I know of a farmer who was so happy to get a carbon market payment check—he grows food and he grows carbon and he got paid during this timeframe and the carbon payment has made a big difference in his life. So we need to reward those working lands – the agricultural growers – for the ecosystem services they provide to humanity,” said Adam Chambers.

“That is a common theme in discussions–that we need to get the markets in place. We can’t wait 5, 10, 20 years to continue with the science. We’ve got to continue to move forward,” said Robert Parkhurst, Sierra View Consulting.

“I think it’s going to be really important that we answer these questions and share knowledge with growers as we go. That can’t really stop us from getting the markets in place and trying to take first steps of action. You’re seeing this from the trailblazers like Danone and others who are stepping out and saying let’s develop insetting frameworks. Obviously, we don’t have everything answered today, but we have enough to get started and you’re seeing that from the Climate Action Reserve and others who are saying here are proposed methodologies, there are scientific questions that we have but, you know, everything kind of has to happen in concert,” said Dan. “The hope is that we develop both the technologies and approaches that allow for scalable practices and couplings of practices that lead to more emissions reduction and sequestration and we have really clear scientifically valid ways of quantifying those changes quickly so that we can get money into the hands of the farmers who are making the biggest impact as quickly as possible.”

Comments we received during the first public comment period for the draft Soil Enrichment Protocol are now posted. We are working on responses to the public comments and expect to hold a second public comment period in summer 2020.

The California Climate Investments initiative supports way more than climate solutions – it also supports equity, community empowerment, and important co-benefits

California’s Cap-and-Trade Program is not limited to the purchase and surrender of allowances and credits. So far, billions of dollars generated from the program have been put to work reducing more emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment with a focus on disadvantaged communities.

As part of the NACW 2020 Virtual Series, experts working on and benefiting from the California Climate Investments program gathered to share insights on the work that has been happening under the initiative. We’re pleased to share key insights from panelists: Alvaro Sanchez, Environmental Equity Director, The Greenlining Institute; Coral Abbott, Program Analyst, Regional Climate Collaboratives Program, California Strategic Growth Council; Amar Azucena Cid, Branch Chief, Low Carbon Transit Operations Program, California Dept of Transportation; Bailey Smith, Staff Air Pollution Specialist, California Air Resources Board; and Sara Webber, Co-founder and Executive Director, Berkeley Food Network.

Quick stats on California Climate Investments

Through November 2019 a total of $12.7 billion have been appropriated by the legislature to advance the California Climate Investments program.
57 percent of implemented dollars (roughly around $3 billion) have benefited priority populations.
$5.3 billion in implemented funds have leveraged an additional $21.7 billion from other sources.
To date implemented California Climate Investment projects have provided direct support to 3,000 full-time equivalent jobs and more than 1,300 job training opportunities. Agencies report that 1,800 of those jobs and training opportunities were provided to priority populations.
The total GHG reductions of the investment suite over their lifetime equals to over 44 million metric tons of carbon.

California Climate Investments is a statewide initiative funded from the state’s Cap-and-Trade auction proceeds that puts billions of dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy and improving public health and the environment—particularly in disadvantaged communities. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) holds quarterly auctions of greenhouse gas emission allowances and deposits the revenue into the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Then the governor and legislature work together to make appropriations from the GGRF, consistent with the framework and requirements set by legislation, to individual state agencies to administer specific programs.

A subset of programs, mostly in the transportation sector, have ongoing multi-year funding commitments and receive a set percentage of each quarterly auction. Most programs, however, are funded annually through a deliberative budget process. Funds have gone to over 20 state agencies to fund over 60 unique programs. Each individual agency designs their program and selects individual projects that meet the agency’s selection criteria to prioritize projects consistent with the objectives of their program. Proceeds from the Cap-and-Trade Program support programs and projects that not only reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the State, but also deliver major economic, environmental, and public health benefits to the most disadvantaged communities. By legislation, at least 35 percent of investments must be made in disadvantaged communities and low-income communities and households. In actuality, a much larger percentage (57 percent) of funding benefits priority populations.

The breadth of the program is expansive. California Climate Investments provide funding across all sectors of the economy, including affordable housing, renewable energy, public transportation, zero-emission vehicles, environmental restoration, wildfire prevention, more sustainable agriculture, recycling and much more. State agencies receiving appropriations develop and implement a suite of programs within three priority areas: transportation & sustainable communities (SB862 established continuous appropriates of 60 percent of available GGRF proceeds for certain transportation and sustainable communities programs including public transit and affordable housing); clean energy & energy efficiency (under SB350, the state goal is to double building energy efficiency and increase renewable energy to 50 percent by 2030); and natural resources & waste diversion (such wildfire programs, urban and community forestry, manure management, drinking water, healthy soils, wetlands restoration and more).

Equity is a key focus of the CCI program

“California is experimenting with equity practices more than any other state in the country and the climate investments program is one in which equity is showing up in really meaningful ways,” said Alvaro. “Equity is not equality. Equity acknowledges that people are starting from different places, not because of how hard they worked or how successful they are, but because those communities have faced systems of oppression including racism, white supremacy, and imperialism that have hindered their ability to thrive economically. So those communities deserve additional support and systems to get them to par with their counterparts. And equity is not only a commitment, equity is a practice. An equity commitment without a roadmap on how to achieve the equity outcome becomes a broken promise. With the California Climate Investments program, we’re seeking to be comprehensive, holistic, equitable. We want to emphasize rectifying some of the wrongs of how we got here, and moving forward we want to change dynamics so that those injustices don’t persist in a clean energy environment.”

“When we talk about resilience to climate change, we know that the most vulnerable communities and community members are going to be hit the hardest, so it’s really important that we continue to make investments in disadvantaged and low-income communities for our overall resilience as a state. And we should continue to make investments in this way, and it should be something that others look to if they’re thinking about developing their own programs focused on climate resilience,” said Coral.

“Each individual agency really carefully designs their program to make sure that they’re targeting priority communities. There’s a variety of strategies to try to get funds to priority populations – eligibility requirements, extra scoring points on applications, outreach, reduce match funding requirements. Each of the investments that are counted towards these goals are really highly scrutinized,” said Bailey. “Thinking only of getting the biggest GHG reduction per dollar as a sole focus of the program really overlooks how the program can address historical inequities and benefit those overburdened communities. The capacity of CCI to really achieve multiple benefits is one of the greatest successes, so we prioritize those multiple benefits and the equity piece.”

Investing in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions transform California communities with a wide range of co-benefits and quality of life improvements.

“The California Strategic Growth Council focuses for the most part on the greater built environment, with a particular focus on supporting communities to develop healthy neighborhoods while at the same time helping to meet state climate goals. One of our largest CCI programs is the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program that makes investments in affordable housing, transit, active transportation, and urban greening in an integrated manner to build healthier communities while simultaneously reducing vehicle miles traveled, which is one of the largest sources of emissions in the state and whose emission impacts end up being felt the most by disadvantaged and low-income community members,” said Coral. “Infill and conservation don’t immediately necessarily seem like an equity strategy but because personal vehicle use is such a large source of emissions, our goal is to develop healthy livable and dense communities, while simultaneously preventing growth into natural working lands.”

“One thing I want to share is the breadth of the program. What we’re demonstrating with CCI is that there are so many ways that you can reduce emissions—from restoring wetlands to applying compost to ag land. And we’re just showing that there’s all of these ways that we can achieve benefits while also achieving all of these other benefits like clean water and climate resiliency. We have this whole toolbox of tools to use to achieve our climate goals, but we can do that while gaining so much more than just the carbon benefits,” said Bailey.

Community engagement empowers disadvantaged communities and ensures climate solutions meet the needs of the neighborhood.

“A huge through-line in our work is meaningful community engagement and leadership. Since many of our investments are intended to benefit disadvantaged communities whose members have historically been left out of the decision-making process for land-use decisions and research needs, we find it critical to bring in and center community voices through our programs,” said Coral. “We hope that going through the process of applying to and implementing these programs can help local governments, industry, and academia develop processes to do this engagement outside of our grant opportunities.”

“The Low Carbon Transit Operations Program (LCTOP) is a statewide funded program with an annual appropriation of 5 percent of the total CCI, averaging around $100-150 million a year. LCTOP projects include new and expanded or enhanced transit, such as greater service frequency or new lines, free or reduced transit passes and vouchers, zero-emission vehicles infrastructure capital projects, station improvements or amenities such as solar lighting or shelter to protect against inclement weather. Community members provide input and ask for particular transit improvements.” said Amar. “With CCI, we have a starting template here that could be replicated statewide or nationwide. Really prioritizing our communities that have been historically harmed by racist policies that impact the health and well-being of our communities is something that we need to take a deep dive into, making sure that we’re centering the programs to really speak to what communities actually want.”

The COVID pandemic shows the great need in disadvantaged communities for food and employment security.

“Our grant comes through the food waste prevention and rescue grant and we provide free food to people who are food insecure. Food recovery from grocery stores and even restaurants and farmers is not unusual—it’s been around for 4 decades, but now there’s more awareness of the need for this kind of programming in our attempts to reduce GHG emissions,” said Sara. “Our work has been very impacted by the COVID-19 situation. We’ve seen the number of people we are serving grow by three times in the last eight weeks. There’s huge need that’s going to continue for quite a while. Food is going to be more needed than ever.”

“The role of CCI to contribute to climate inequity issues seems more important than ever. We’ve seen what these funds can do and especially what they can do for the people who are hardest hit,” said Bailey. “We’re looking at the data of the programs we have, what are the outcomes and how we can make sure that we’re supporting those essential programs that are providing economic resiliency and equity benefits. We collect a lot of information about what programs are supporting jobs or have the potential to support jobs across the economy. CCI is really effective in supporting workforce development and economic development so this is an opportunity to use this as part of the recovery effort for a broader economic recovery package.”

The NACW 2020 Virtual Series: New Frontier: Natural Working Lands webinar recording is now available!

Join us Thursday, May 21 for the next #NACW2020 Virtual Series webinar – New Frontier: Natural Working Lands

The recording of the NACW Virtual Series webinar – Supporting Local Action: the CA Climate Investments Program is now available!