Climate conference discussed opportunities for action

Over three days in October, the Climate Beacon Conference convened municipal officials and staff, environmental advocates, clean energy professionals, and business partners to celebrate climate progress and discuss further opportunities for climate action.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey delivered the keynote at the opening reception on Oct. 16, discussing the impact and importance of the Inflation Reduction Act, which enables non-taxable entities (including municipal governments) to receive cash refunds for certain clean energy investments. (Markey’s Inflation Reduction Act Implementation Guide offers more information on the law and how to take advantage of the tax credit opportunities.)

Referencing the valuable conversations taking place at the conference and the opportunities unlocked by the IRA, Markey said Massachusetts is “turning its promises into projects.”

On Oct. 17, MMA Executive Director Adam Chapdelaine kicked off a Municipal Movers breakfast reception, which featured Cambridge Energy Alliance Outreach Director Meghan Shaw and NRG Consumer Vice President and General Manager Mike Rombach discussing Cambridge’s municipal aggregation program and efforts to make the city’s electricity “greener,” including through a community solar program on the roof of a local school.

Also on Oct. 17, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu joined GBH President Susan Goldberg for a “Harborside Chat” focused on the role of municipalities in charting the course to a more sustainable, livable future, and how local leaders balance the decisions they have to make every day.

Wu said “there’s a climate connection to everything we’re doing” in city government, adding that “progress is possible if we keep everyone at the table.”

Wu said many of the most easily attainable actions on energy efficiency are well underway or completed, so the majority of areas left for improvement are those requiring systemic change that will take significant effort and coordination at the local government level.

The programming of Climate Beacon, the Climate Beacon Project’s second annual conference, was broken into four tracks:
• Building Better: Focused on designing and building the infrastructure and neighborhoods of the future and how to retrofit and modernize the current building stock
• Powering Better: Focused on how everyone benefits from scaling the clean, renewable energy the region needs, how that energy is used, and how these developments positively impact their surrounding environments
• Moving Better: Focused on how people get from place to place in cleaner, healthier, more modern ways
• Adapting Better: Focused on how communities better adapt to the impacts of climate change through natural solutions, smart community and economic choices, and environmental restoration

“Systems Ready for the Future,” a panel discussion in the “Powering Better” track, featured an interactive walkthrough of En-ROADS, a global climate simulator. En-ROADS allows users to manipulate certain policy levers relative to energy supply, the transportation system, buildings and industry assets, carbon dioxide removal, and greenhouse gas sources to create global temperature predictions.

Bethany Patten, executive director of MIT’s Climate Policy Center, stressed that a holistic approach, employing any and all available levers, will make the most beneficial impact on reducing global warming in the least amount of time.

Climate Beacon was held at the Boston Society of Architects under the theme “Charting the Course.” See the event website for more information.