Welcome back to the Our Earth monthly enviro-round-up! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
If you found that food prices ahead of the holiday gobbled up your November budget, climate change is partially to blame. We’ve just lived through the world’s hottest 12-month span ever recorded, an analysis by Climate Central found. Heat waves, droughts and intense rainfall in many of the world’s food-growing regions disrupted production of staples like olive oil, milk, eggs, corn and rice, according to reporting from Vox.
Preserving our own food supplies requires slashing our fossil fuel use globally. Read on to catch up quickly about some ways D.C. is working on that this month.
Mayor Bowser Heads to U.N. Climate Conference
Mayor Muriel Bowser left Sunday, Nov. 26 for Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, for the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, according to her office’s public calendar released Nov. 25. Before joining the international convening, which is officially known as the 28th Conference of Parties or COP28, Bowser’s office said she would stop in Qatar to speak with leaders there and “promote Washington, DC as a destination for investment and tourism.”
Once in Dubai, Bowser will participate in the first-ever Local Action Climate Summit, a gathering of “subnational leaders” co-hosted by the COP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. She’ll represent D.C. as a World Climate Action Summit Mayoral Delegate, a slate of eight city heads that also includes the leaders of Tokyo and Paris.
The mayor’s trip has sparked disapproval on X (formerly known as Twitter), and in right-wing outlets like Fox News and BizPac Review, where critics framed the visit to Qatar and Dubai as a vacation taking attention away from problems in the District.
At the same time, COP28 generally has faced skepticism worldwide because the host country, the UAE, is one of the world’s biggest oil producers. The man appointed to preside over the conference, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, is the head of the nation’s state-owned oil company. Leaked documents published by the Centre for Climate Reporting on Nov. 27 showed that Al Jaber used that role to push oil deals with other governments’ leaders.
Big Battery Buses Hit D.C.’s Streets
Metro rolled out two 60-foot electric buses earlier this month, marking a first step toward an all-electric bus fleet, the agency said in a press release Nov. 13. The new buses will run on the W4 route between the Anacostia and Deanwood metro stations.
Other than a green electrical plug painted on the side, these two buses look mostly the same as other “articulated buses” in the Metrobus fleet — the ones with an accordion-like connector in the middle. But e-buses run quieter and contribute less air pollution than buses that run on diesel or natural gas. Swapping electricity for fossil fuels also reduces the greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat in our atmosphere, especially as D.C. shoots for 100% renewable electricity by 2032.
Metro originally planned to receive the buses in February, but they did not arrive until June, according to reporting from DCist’s Jacob Fenston. The manufacturer had to delay delivery because of a battery recall, which was triggered when a bus caught fire in a Connecticut bus depot last July.
In general, climate advocates have argued that Metro’s bus electrification plan, which aims to have an all-electric fleet by 2042, have lagged behind other cities’ proposals, including Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.
Stepping Up Solar Goals
The DMV’s regional planning organization set a goal Nov. 8 to more than triple the number of solar rooftops in the region over the next six years — aiming for 250,000 rooftop arrays by 2030, compared to 73,000 in place today.
With the vote, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ (COG) Board of Directors — a three-person board that includes one leader each from Maryland, D.C. and Virginia — pushes DMV jurisdictions to focus on renewable energy and emissions reductions. According to a press release from the organization, the COG plans to advance those efforts starting next year by bringing together local government officials working in procurement and facilities roles alongside leaders in the private sector.
The aims adopted by the COG are fully voluntary. Along with the rooftop solar adoption goal, per the press release, the organization’s vote “urges” and “encourages” COG members to:
- Work on installing solar on government buildings
- “Explore procuring 100 percent of electricity for government operations with renewable energy.”
- Support community-wide efforts to deploy solar through:
- Programs for low-income residents
- Effective industry engagement
- Efficient zoning and permitting
- Provision of incentives, rebates, and grants;
- Support for bulk purchasing and solar co-ops and community choice aggregation
- Workforce development
