KLA Perspectives

Each summer, KLA works with MassCEC’s Clean Energy Internship program to connect with passionate, committed, and mission-driven students from across Massachusetts, our home base. The KLA Summer Internship helps connect a broad range of students to the local climate action process and brings fresh perspectives to our work fighting the climate crisis one local government at a time.  

For local governments, climate action plans need to do more than just outline a path to emissions reductions. A strong climate action plan not only properly analyzes current conditions to create a feasible path forward, it galvanizes support and incentivizes the necessary action from residents and local businesses to reduce climate impacts and support resiliency. 

Earth Day Is Over. Time to Kick Climate Action into High Gear – With or Without a Plan  

Don’t squander momentum from Earth Day by waiting to take action.  

As local government reps in the climate and sustainability space, we too often get stuck in a rut, waiting to complete   a specific process before we take action. We all know the drill: Conduct a GHG inventory, then go through a planning process, then hire a “sustainability coordinator” and only then does the real action kick off. While it’s important to have a plan to guide the action, humanity can no longer afford to wait for that process. Reports from the United Nations and others have made it clear that we are not on track to meet the necessary reductions to avoid catastrophic climate change. 

It’s Time to Go Big to Protect Our Home. 

It’s unavoidable: if you are a local government or community group representative, taking part in upcoming Earth Month and Earth Day events is a must. 

And for good reason: every April, there is a surge of interest in eco-friendly solutions – in fact, Google searches surrounding climate change and sustainabilityoften peak this time of year. Unfortunately, many Earth Day promotions and events are focused on surface-level, individualistic solutions (think re-usable straws) that don’t truly match the urgency of the climate crisis.  

Home electrification and energy efficiency should always be considered top priority climate action strategies given their high-impact potential. The availability of incentives and rebate programs in this space are important – but residents actually utilizing those incentives is critical to match the urgency of the climate crisis. 

When creating and implementing climate action plans, we often see these issues from a 10,000-foot level, but it’s important to know how these rebate systems play out on the ground in order to address barriers that residents may face in accessing the benefits that electrification and efficiency can bring. 

This month’s blog is guest written by KLA’s Technology Director, Danielle Civitillo, who utilized local incentive programs to assess her home’s energy efficiency and install energy-efficient insulation as a renter in Massachusetts.

We get it. Especially around the holidays, many people tend to avoid conversations that they perceive to be controversial: whether that be politics, personal life, or the climate crisis. But the recent uptick in understanding and concern about the latter provides the opportunity for climate conversations with friends and family to not only be uncontroversial, but productive in facilitating positive climate action. 

Climate ambassadors in Cary, NC spread the word about the Count Me in, Cary! climate action strategy

You might not be surprised to learn that trust in federal elected officials is in the basement. Only about32% of Americans have a “great deal/fair amount of trust” in Congress – 23% have “none at all”.  Top billing for trust among government institutions is local governments with 67% (though even that number has dropped from 75% just a few years ago). 

Source: Gallup

Perhaps that reflects your own opinions or rings true with what you see in the headlines.It’s one of the many reasons why KLA focusesalmost exclusively on local governments. But our laser focus on US cities, towns and counties is rooted more in the positives than the negatives: they are perfectly positioned and extremely motivated to meet the urgency of the climate crisis. Not through municipal operations alone but by sparking and enabling behavior change in the community.  

Stakeholder meeting between Cary, NC sustainability staff and first responders

September is National Preparedness Month, and as the world comes out of a scorching summer with seemingly never-ending climate hazards (think wildfire smoke on the East coast, freak flooding and hail events in the Southwest, and record temperatures across the country), integrating emergency preparedness into climate action planning is more important than ever. Summer 2023 was Earth’s hottest on record, with over 97% of the American population experiencing at least one summer day notably influenced by climate change.

For many municipalities, it might not be standard operating procedures for a sustainability team to actively collaborate with first responders and public safety officials during the climate action planning process – but it absolutely should be. When it comes to best preparing your community for the effects of climate change, cross-departmental collaboration isn’t a tick-the-box or nice-to-have. It’s absolutely essential.

Guest Post by Dunia Seidu, KLA Summer 2023 Climate Storytelling Intern.

Dunia is a rising senior studying English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.  As Climate Storytelling Intern, she worked with a range of KLA clients, like Cambridge, to tell stories about their current efforts to address and adapt to climate change.

The City of Cambridge has announced a new pilot partnership with BlocPower, is a climate technology company that analyzes, finances and upgrades homes and buildings, becoming the first city in New England to work with the climate technology company on building decarbonization.