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“Everything’s greater in Decatur,” says the City of Decatur, Ga., motto. The maxim represents a city that prides itself on walkability, good schools, vibrant small businesses, community collaboration and pioneering innovation. But like many cities around the country, Decatur, Ga., grapples with how to best integrate climate change solutions into practicable policy as the area warms. Residents experienced an average of 20 days above 95 °F in the last 30 years and are expected to see that number increase to more than 90 days by 2050. This story is about how data informed community engagement helped Decatur develop and approve a Clean Energy Plan. The plan details pathways to eliminating all its government and community carbon emissions by 2035, and the remaining community uses, such as home electricity use and transportation, by 2050. “The vision for Decatur is to do its part in the clean energy transition, support our peer communities in the transition, come together for systemic grid level change, and create a healthier, more resilient, equitable and more affordable community,” says David Nifong, Energy and Sustainability Manager, City of Decatur. “It will definitely require all of us.” The city needed a plan grounded in data and backed by community buy-in to make the vision a reality. That’s where Southface Institute and Greenlink Analytics’ partnership launched this reality. Greenlink utilized their computer modeling tool, Advanced Clean Energy Scenario (ACES), to analyze Decatur’s building stock, energy fuel mix, greenhouse gas inventory, and means of transportation and forecast changes in energy through 2050. Southface then presented the data through roundtables, surveys, stakeholder interviews, and a two-day in-person charrette (integrated planning session) to drum up enduring support. “The essential component is that enduring support,” says Robert Reed, advisor for Southface Institute. “Gather a set of experts behind a wall and they could come up with the most expeditious solution to reducing emissions,” he continues, “But what happened instead is that through community we heard that the social impact of the plan needed to be weighed heavily and placed at the forefront.” Hearing from the community changed the trajectory of Decatur’s plan. Feedback guided the city toward a scenario entitled Social and Local Impact: a pathway that leads to the highest public health and job benefits. The "Social and Local Impact Scenario" calls for a cumulative investment of $57 million in clean energy over the period of the goal, reaping cumulative benefits of $520 million and avoiding nearly 1 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. Why is this important? In 2020, the median income for a white household in Decatur was about 480% greater than the median income for Black households. This disparity extends to levels of education and the number of households that rely on nutrition assistance, meaning that when a community starts to find savings in energy bills, it means the families who couldn’t afford their electricity or utility bills are now able to pay their bills and the extra money can now go towards education, food and other basic necessities. In summary, community engagement helps build healthier neighborhoods from the very foundation because they are able to point out their needs in a way that targets systemic repair and long term solutions. The City of Decatur’s Clean Energy Plan was unanimously adopted in September 2022. Photos courtesy of City of Decatur, Ga.

Greenlink is pleased to announce publication of the Annual Report, showcasing the amazing things our team achieved in 2022. Climate change continues to be a major topic in the news and people’s lives, from record breaking heat to new federal climate policies and clean energy triumphs. While climate change is a global challenge, not all communities bear the brunt equally. In the U.S., non-white and lower income communities experience the greatest health, economic, and environmental risks. If the choices of policymakers don’t embrace and uphold these communities, we won’t achieve the decarbonized future we need - and in that case, they’re not sustainable to begin with. Our challenge, our daily work, is to ensure that the clean energy transition takes place as intentionally and as promptly as possible. Our analyst, data science and equity teams work hard to provide the foundational data, analyses, context and guidance to make this happen. Click to read the Greenlink Analytics 2022 Annual Report. "When we cannot predict the outcome of a person’s life because of a race, gender, or where they’re from, we will have succeeded." ~ Greenlink Analytics

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 21st, 2023 Media Contacts: Ricky Junquera, ricky.junquera@sierraclub.org Robynne Boyd, rboyd@greenlinkanalytics.org LINK TO REPORT New Report Finds Orlando’s Lower Income Communities Face High Energy Burden Western and Southwestern Orlando communities pay about 130% more of their monthly income on energy bills than the national average. ORLANDO, FL - A new report out today from Greenlink Analytics shows a large disparity between the energy burden faced by different communities across Orlando, from a low of 1.8% to as high as 9.2%. Energy burden is the percent of income spent on electricity and gas bills. The national average of the percentage of household earnings going towards energy costs is roughly 4%. "It’s crystal clear that we must take action to end the disparities between low-income communities, experiencing more than twice that of the national average, and their affluent neighbors who spend less than four times the energy burden,” said Susan Glickman of the Florida Clinicians for Climate Action. “It's an injustice that requires strong action. We must both increase awareness to protect health and also move concrete solutions to upgrade substandard housing, expand weatherization efforts, provide cooling centers, and identify other adaptive measures." On Thursday, February 23rd at the University of Central Florida’s Downtown Campus, Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign is hosting an Energy Equity Summit along with the Hispanic Federation, Alianza Center, The Cleo Institute, Central Florida Jobs with Justice, NAACP, Florida Rising, Florida Clinicians for Climate Action, and The Climate Reality Project aimed at discussing the intersectionality of energy burden to housing affordability and health impacts. From the report: “Energy burden is not a stand-alone issue. The financial strains associated with the energy burden express a history of socioeconomic conditions that continue to negatively plague communities today. The data show that Orlando’s energy burdens have shown a moderate relationship to chronic health issues, such as asthma and poor mental health. Additionally, Orlando’s energy burden has primarily impacted renter-occupied households versus owner-occupied households. Understanding the interconnectedness of health, housing, and energy issues helps reveal energy burden as part of greater structural injustice, and why a pattern of communities facing a cluster of challenges all at once continues to present over time.” “Greenlink undertook an in-depth analysis of the intersections between energy, health, and housing inequities to reveal how those paying unfair amounts on utility bills face an onslaught of other issues that perpetuate poverty,” said Greenlink Analytics’ Director of Community Initiatives, Angelica Chavez-Duckworth. “This means that addressing energy burden could provide people the opportunity to climb the economic ladder.” Background: Over the past three years, Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign has worked with the Hispanic Federation, Alianza Center, The Cleo Institute, Central Florida Jobs with Justice, NAACP, Florida Rising, Clinicians for Climate Action, The Climate Reality Project, and others to combat fuel cost rate hikes along with utility shut-offs that have directly harmed lower-income communities across Orlando. The Energy Equity Summit brings communities together to discuss the interconnectedness of these issues, and prepare themselves to organize to push to combat these issues. ### About the Sierra Club The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.

The term redlining has become synonymous with discriminatory housing policies and a legacy of racist practices. The situation stems from the 1930s when the federal Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) published city maps categorizing neighborhoods by their alleged mortgage-lending risk. Higher risks were heavily associated with areas where Black, Latine/x, and immigrant communities lived. As a result, credit eligible residents living in “risky areas” frequently couldn’t receive loans based solely on race or location. These maps were later known as “redlining maps.” Now a new digital mapping tool launching February 16 makes it easier than ever to see how the history of redlining shapes communities today. Over the last year, Greenlink Analytics translated the University of Richmond’s comprehensive archive of “residential security” maps into modern day census tracts and assigned a percentage based on a tract’s level of redlining. An important feature of the tool is that people can see the impact and legacy of redlining in their neighborhood. “We focused on redlining because we believe that bringing historical housing policy data into the Greenlink Equity Map, aka GEM, will help us understand their impact on how our communities are living today,” says Sharanya Madhavan, lead data scientist for the Greenlink Analytics redlining project, “Formerly redlined areas are associated with ongoing neighborhood segregation, wealth disparities, and the overall condition of neighborhoods.” But seeing is believing. Take the City of Atlanta, for example. The redlining indicator shows that more than half of Pittsburgh, a predominantly Black neighborhood just south of Downtown Atlanta, was redlined (see image below of census tract 57). The site of the neighborhood was purchased by the Freedman's Aid Society in 1864 and founded by formerly enslaved people. But as the GEM tool also shows, what was once a flourishing corridor of Black-owned businesses is now plagued by severe energy burden (the percent of income spent on electricity and gas bills), lack of access to health insurance, and high housing burden (residents spending more than 30% on housing costs). Nearby, the largely Black community of Roseland had been almost a quarter redlined and is now situated near a penitentiary, located in a food desert, and blighted with old and abandoned houses. Like Pittsburgh, this neighborhood also suffers from severe energy burden, lack of health insurance access, and housing burden. As we can see with both neighborhoods, redlining helps contextualize a common pattern of historic disinvestment in non-white communities. To generate these insights, Greenlink used the original HOLC redlining maps with their historic boundaries and risk categories and inserted them into a detailed digital map of the United States. The historic four risk-levels, A, B, C, or D, corresponded with the colors green for “best,” blue for “still desirable,” yellow for “declining,” and red for “hazardous.” Each census tract converts the risk categories into ratios based on the percent and grade of redlining assigned in the original maps. The redlining indicator features approximately 202 cities and more than 16,000 neighborhoods across the United States. The Greenlink Equity Map displays over 40 environmental and social disparity measurements, including asthma rates, energy burden, heat intensity, and now redlining. “One of our core commitments at Greenlink is to tackle systemic injustice,” says Madhavan. “We are hoping to do just that by helping people visualize redlining.” To receive a demo of the redlining tool, or learn more about the Greenlink Equity Map, reach out to Angelica (Jellie) Duckworth (jduckworth@greenlinkanalytics.org) or Daniel Wagner (dwagner@greenlinkanalytics.org).

As the saying goes, health is wealth. At the most fundamental level, health serves as a foundational building block for safety and wellbeing. Accessing affordable, high-quality healthcare should be a right to everyone, believes Vibrant Health. Vibrant is a federally qualified health center based in Wyandotte County, Kansas that provides culturally sensitive and high-quality healthcare for their patients, regardless of socio-economic obstacles. “There are parts of the Northeast Wyandotte that are extremely vulnerable,” says Matt Kleinmann, director of community development for Vibrant Health. “To respond to that, Vibrant wants to create a clinic, but to do that we need a strong foundation about why we need to make the investment, and make sure we’re doing it with the community, not just for the community.” But, providing healthcare that meets community needs is easier said than done because health is not a stand-alone issue. It is inextricably linked to other socio-economic factors, such as housing, economic stability, and natural environment. For example, pollution, poorly ventilated homes, mold or pests increase the chance of developing chronic illnesses such as asthma. And Wyandotte County, with its 170,000 residents, consistently ranks last in the state for addressing these social determinants of health. Understanding the most common ailments a community faces, the conditions that exacerbate disease, and who suffers most, is key to providing the right care. Vibrant Health partnered with LivZero, a place-based, participatory research firm, and Greenlink Analytics to get some answers. The analysis utilized data from the Greenlink Equity Map, an interactive tool that illustrates the intersections of these inequities. The data was revealing. (The yellow-highlighted census tracts indicate strong relationships between racial composition (percent Latinx/Hispanic) and a lack of health insurance.) Black and Latine/x communities in Wyandotte face far higher hurdles to improving their health. Black communities have some of the highest rates of chronic health diseases, such as asthma, stroke, and diabetes throughout the entire county. Similarly, the Latine/x communities face larger mental health challenges and more limited access to healthcare. Geography plays an additional role in determining the health outcomes for communities, too. Nearly a quarter of Vibrant Health’s patients live in the two zip codes with the highest rates of health, socioeconomic, income and energy burden stress. “A pattern emerges from the analysis showing that just a couple of zip codes face an onslaught of challenges,” says Jellie Duckworth, director of Community Initiatives at Greenlink Analytics. “This can be due to an array of reasons, such as past unjust housing policies and environmental hazards nearby (such as superfund, industrial sites, or transportation thoroughfares) and worth further context and understanding.” Knowing the problem is half the solution. This analysis, along with future inclusive research and community engagement, will help determine needs of this area, how to effectively promote health equity, and how to have the best impact on improving health outcomes for Vibrant Health’s patients and Wyandotte’s residents at large. Whether it’s establishing minor housing repair programs for residents to make homes healthier and mitigate displacement, prioritizing neighborhoods vulnerable to pollution from superfund sites, or investing in local businesses to enable economic growth, health spans boundaries and requires dynamic solutions. In this way, Vibrant Health hopes to address the root issues that affect health instead of tackling an endless stream of symptoms, and boost health across Wyandotte County.

As the year comes to an end, we want to reflect on what has been done over the past 12 months and what’s to come in the new year. Throughout the year, climate change continued to be one of the hottest topics this year, from record breaking heat to new federal climate policies and clean energy triumphs. Climate solutions need a people-centered approach to ensure best outcomes for everyone. While climate change is a global challenge, not all communities bear the brunt equally. In the U.S., non-white and lower income communities experience the greatest health, economic and environmental risks. If the solutions don’t embrace and uphold these communities, we won’t achieve the decarbonized future we need - and in that case, they’re not real solutions. Cities and communities all over the country have been leading the real work on climate policy for years. Those efforts are getting a massive boost from the Federal government now through a series of major investments and initiatives. Foremost in our minds is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, a huge climate win signed into law in August. The IRA invests $369 billion in clean energy projects and incentives for energy-efficient technologies such as heat pumps and electric vehicles. It also includes historic investments in environmental justice and economic development, calling for several new grant and incentive programs focused on righting past wrongs. And we’re here for it. We are helping cities and organizations across the country learn about the funding opportunities coming available and how our Greenlink Equity Map can guide the distribution of these funds. Backing out to the global scale, investment in wind and solar power is outpacing the billions of dollars spent on electricity from fossil fuels for the first time ever, with global renewable power set to pass coal as the biggest source of electricity generation by 2025. The clean energy transition is happening, folks. Our daily work ensures that it takes place as intentionally and as promptly as possible. These trends formed the backdrop to some of the largest projects we’ve worked on this past year. Here’s a few to remember: · After three and a half years of work, Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded American Cities Climate Challenge came to a close. The Climate Challenge cities’ total emissions reductions surpassed the target of the Paris Climate Agreement.We analyzed the energy burdens and correlated inequitable outcomes for all 25 cities, assisted with policy and program analysis in most of them, and kept track of progress for the entire effort. We built new state of the art energy analysis programs and assisted with programs that will reduce childhood asthma from vehicle exhaust, create thousands of good-paying, high road jobs, and make energy affordable for all while simultaneously cutting emissions. What. A. Rush. · Our GEM Community of Practice told us what they needed to see in order to make better progress on their equity initiatives and we went to work. GEM 2.0 launched with an improved user interface, new color schemes and correlational graphs, and new datasets. Two new novel datasets were deployed within the mapping tool - Urban Heat Index and Urban Tree Canopy, and more are still to come. · We’re deep into the development of Better Power - the first-of-its-kind energy generation and carbon intensity forecasting tool using high-resolution hourly data to compare the investments, job creation, and public health impacts of various clean energy scenarios with business-as-usual trajectories. High resolution on the temporal and geographic aspects of energy use arekey to making carbon accounting more effective and accurate - we often correct errors that exceed 30%. Hourly, localized information is the path to the future we need. In 2023, we see tremendous opportunities to collaborate and enable the most significant community-driven, data informed energy action that has ever happened in this country because of the significant set-up work done in 2022. The historical focus on disproportionate burden will remain central and important, but new stories of job creation, local economic development, improving health outcomes, and first-of-their-kind initiatives to realize more just and fair outcomes are there for the making. We’ll see you changemakers out there in the new year!

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.” ~ Anonymous Trees evolved over hundreds of millions of years to retain water, absorb pollution, provide shade, and prevent erosion, making them excellent at reducing climate change in cities. Yet not all urban tree canopies are created equal. Many cities around the country have tree-planting programs, however, the programs and distribution of trees can be spotty, leaving some neighborhoods without trees to absorb the heat refracting off streets, sidewalks, and buildings. Understanding who’s protected by trees and who isn’t provides insights into human wellbeing and stressors. On November 14, Greenlink Analytics launched a new novel dataset "Urban Tree Canopy,” a tool that allows users to see the distribution of trees across city neighborhoods. The tool is part of the Greenlink Equity Map, which already measures urban heat islands among more than 30 other environmental and social disparities. The tool’s sophisticated interface not only helps reveal tree cover, but also the relationship between tree cover and other inequities. “People are suffering unnecessarily,” says Sharanya Madhavan, data scientist and team lead and creator of Greenlink’s Urban Tree Canopy tool. “Understanding the intersections between trees, heat, health, and energy are really important.” [City of Atlanta skyline and the Urban Tree Canopy map] The Greenlink team undertook a detailed analysis combined with machine learning techniques to evaluate the percent of urban tree canopy across all metro areas in the United States. The data relied on satellite imagery from the summer season on cloudless days. All images were captured at 10am with a single map pixel representing a 30-meter squared swath of land. In this way the team provided a high-resolution, detailed analysis of 378 metro areas with a greater than 90 percent accuracy.. The aim was to provide a tree canopy score – based on percentage - across area codes to reveal the inequitable distribution of risks across different populations within the same urban area. For example, in Baltimore, Md., one neighborhood has an energy burden of 22 percent and zero percent tree canopy cover, while another has a one percent energy burden and 54 percent tree cover. This way people could start answering questions like, where are the neighborhoods with fewer trees and what’s the relationship between lack of tree coverage and also suffering from high heat intensity, high energy bills, and high asthma rates. The GEM tool allows users to see these stats in visual and granular detail. “A lot of city planners are working hard to understand what policies and programs can alleviate urban heat islands as part of larger policy,” says Madhavan. “Understanding the data is the first step towards change. The second step is knowing where to channel funding. Research shows that planting trees in low-income, nonwhite communities can begin reducing the inequities related to tree cover, heat, and energy bills. The simple act of planting trees has an impressive capacity to mitigate climate change, improve inequities, and boost wellbeing. _____________________________________

Movement and migration exist at the roots of American culture. Finding a new place to live can mean increased choices, opportunities, and upward mobility. It’s a very different story when someone is forced from their home. Residents in historically Black and Brown neighborhoods too often face a Hobson’s choice when prices rise in their communities: stay, though it’s unaffordable, or leave, despite the lack of housing. The results are that communities dismantle, cultures dissolve, demographics change, and people suffer. Displacement is an epidemic in America. While a common part of the modern vernacular, the drivers are blurry and poorly understood. Nonetheless, the causes and their potential remedies are at the forefront of many conversations Greenlink has with cities and organizations. The most well-known factors are household income and non-white communities. But there’s much more happening below the surface. People’s everyday lives - small stressors exacerbated through historical prejudices – have large implications on neighborhoods and why they change cultures and separate communities. These deserve to be better understood. Greenlink recently analyzed many social determinants that may increase the threat of neighborhood turnover and displacement. These include redlining, high housing costs, energy burden, household incomes, energy use, and mental health. We focused on Atlanta, San Francisco, and Chicago based on their diverse demographics, weather conditions, and impact of historical policies. Data was gathered at the census tract level from numerous sources and required a different level of preparation for each city to better understand the impact and trends in a local context. We used advanced machine learning to evaluate these trends and predict the key drivers of displacement, along with their significance within the city and their ranking. These key drivers were further studied with an in-depth correlational analysis to explore their relationship with health issues within their respective cities. What we discovered may surprise you. Energy burden is prevalent across all three cities. Yup, the relative cost of electricity and gas bills directly affects whether a person can remain in their home, neighborhood, and community, or are forced to move. And, unfortunately, mental health frequently declines as energy burdens increase, according to the data. San Francisco and Atlanta specifically showed migration patterns, or people moving into the city from outside, as connected to displacement. In Chicago, its housing costs and number of single family homes, education levels, and redlining were dominant. And each city in the U.S. has a different set of factors influencing displacement, making it critical to study the local context and not rely on a one-size-fits-all solution, or simply borrow policies from other jurisdictions. It's vital to understand and address these factors to prevent people being forced out of their communities. Each community should be addressed individually and based on their needs and assets. For example, if the City of Atlanta channeled some of its funds into areas with highest energy burdens, as shown by our mapping tool, energy efficiency and burden would improve, which would also reduce some of the pressures on housing affordability. But to really understand these relationships, we must go beyond data and computer models and bring the policy makers and people experiencing the pressures of displacement in real time to develop a path forward together. In this way, the data becomes a tool for further understanding and hopefully long-rooted communities. Citation: Mantripragada, M., Sharanya Madhavan, Samantha McDonald, Diamond Spratling, Kavin Manickaraj, and Matt Cox. “Driving Displacement: Energy, Social, and Environmental Determinants’ Roles in Urban Gentrification.” 2022 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings.

Climate change regulations have been making big headlines lately. Near the end of June, the Supreme Court issued a decision limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) power to cap carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants. A couple weeks later, the Senate passed a long-stalled federal climate bill that aims to dramatically reduce national greenhouse gas emissions. Despite these ups and downs in the news cycle, we at Greenlink want to take a step back, provide some history behind the decisions, explain how they’ll impact city and state climate work, and reiterate that the clean energy transition can’t — and won’t — stop. The actions that lead to better outcomes happen on the ground, in local communities. But first, let’s set the scene for these new policies. Back in 2015, the countries of the world (192 countries plus the European Union) adopted the Paris Agreement with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent the worst impacts of climate change (read: extreme storms, heat waves, and droughts and the resulting social stresses they would cause). The U.S. pledged to lower its emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The Obama Administration developed the Clean Power Plan as the country’s main tool for reaching these goals since it allowed the EPA to set state limits for greenhouse gases from power plants. It created incentives to use clean energy options like energy efficiency to achieve the regulatory targets. But the plan never took effect. Action at the federal level continued to stall. Jump forward seven years to June’s Supreme Court decision – which landed like a sucker punch. What the court did was revisit the already defunct Clean Power Plan, taking issue with how EPA would have regulated power sources and their emissions under the plan. Only Congress has the power to make such consequential decisions, said the ruling, which meant the Clean Power Plan was once and for all buried and dead. That said, hope is not lost. The good news, explains Frank Rambo, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, is that the decision does not affect the basic authority or responsibility of EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. The EPA can still set emissions limits based on available technologies, possibly like carbon capture and storage. So, in a state like West Virginia, with deep connections to the fossil fuel industry, they would still have to reduce emissions, but they wouldn’t have to retire their coal-fired electric power plants if those plants could hit carbon performance targets. And it’s worth noting that the cost of renewables will make them attractive even for states like West Virginia. “The primary action on clean energy and climate will continue to be at the state and regional level,” assures Rambo, “Yet, this progress could receive a boost if Congress and the President sets a national CO2 limit.” On Friday, August 12, 2022 – more than three decades since scientists first warned about climate change – the U.S. passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, committing the country to 40 percent emissions reductions by 2030. It is the country’s most ambitious climate change bill, and can help direct funding and resources in the right direction. Solar and wind power will become cheaper. Electric vehicles and infrastructure will possibly surge. And opportunities for environmental justice victories will come forward. For Greenlink, this means the neighborhoods and cities we work with should have greater access to affordable, clean energy options. It means healthier neighborhoods and cities. It means a more equitable future. It means we’re a big step closer to a clean and more just world. “I recently looked at the latest numbers from U.S. Energy Information Administration, and levels CO2 emissions have gone down 50 percent in the power sector in the six southern states that SELC covers (traditionally fossil-fuel dependent) in 15 years between 2005 to 2020,” says Rambo. “We’re not going to get next 50 percent the same way; it does give me hope we will get it done.”

Tackling climate change is a beast. Doing so in an inclusive and just way so that everyone benefits from a clean energy transition is crucial, and tough. Mostly because it’s a new way of thinking about systems change. Nevertheless, that’s the question at heart of Chicago’s most recent climate action plan: what does an equitable climate strategy look like? On the one hand, there’s the existential issue of lowering greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the worst impacts and contributing to the solution. On the other, any of the necessary changes, such as transitioning to a cleaner grid and implementing energy efficiency measures, will impact individuals and their wallets. The critical question is how. “In Chicago, we must be sensitive to all sides of the issue since our city is large and so economically diverse,” says Kyra Woods, policy advisor on climate and environment for Chicago. “We’ve made a commitment to the Paris Agreement and to actively advancing justice and racial equity. Therefore, we need to proactively ensure that our policies benefit residents who feel the burdens of current systems and impacts - even if those residents don’t traditionally discuss them as climate or sustainability impacts.” Taking climate action is no longer uncommon for large U.S. cities. Cities are highly vulnerable to heat, storms, flooding and pollution. As central hubs of economic activity, they are major drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, but they also have the benefit of more flexible, responsive, community-focused policy instruments through which to address the problem. By the start of 2022, 35 of the 50 largest cities in the U.S. had adopted local climate action plans. A while back it was believed that Chicago would escape the worst effects of climate change. But that’s not holding up to scrutiny. A recent IPCC report says the city won’t be able to hide from extreme weather. Precipitation, flooding, extreme heat and declining air quality are on the rise. These raise the health, safety, and economic risk for the city’s 2.7 million residents, especially those who already struggle. “What we do know is that changing climate is a force multiplier on some of the burdens people feel” says Woods, “A key part of developing Chicago’s climate action plan was not hoping for equitable distribution of benefits. Instead, we sought to create goals that were clear about the intent.” Equity is not a singular box that can be checked; it’s about an iterative process that seeks to repair, restore, and improve. "If the climate action plan doesn’t intentionally address legacy issues through policy or tend to the people who have historically been left out, then we’re not evening the playing field,” explains Woods. That means more than just transitioning to clean renewables. It means ensuring that the energy transition serves as an economic opportunity and makes new technologies accessible to all people. That’s where the Greenlink Equity Map (GEM) comes in handy. “GEM allowed us to see this world of data on a single map,” says Woods. “In part you have to look behind the data – then you start to see overlapping lines of inequities.” For example, communities that have long experienced disinvestment may have an abundance of gray infrastructure for trucks, cars, or rail, but may not have well developed green infrastructure like trees or stormwater infrastructure. The area may experience greater heat during the summer and greater flooding, while also having higher utility bills and greater health burdens from various compounding environmental burdens. For the first time in nearly 30 years, Chicago is currently revamping its franchise agreement with Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) for electricity delivery. The city sees an opportunity for a more sustainable future grounded in equity. The GEM data can support the prioritization of areas for more coordinated outreach. Placing support in these communities will change the map for the better. On Aug. 8, Chicago announced a five-year agreement with Constellation Energy to purchase 100 percent renewable energy for all city-owned facilities and operations by 2025. This will help Chicago meet its climate action plan goal of a 62 percent carbon emissions reduction by 2040. “I believe the 2022 Climate Action Plan is a step in the right direction,” says Woods. “The urgency of the issue can feel daunting, but we are living through an era of transformation that can bring about unity, wellbeing, and vitality.”

July 28, 2022 Summer in Houston, Texas, is hot. Average temperatures measure slightly warmer than in Death Valley, making it one of the hottest places in America. While no one’s making it through a Houston summer without sweating, some residents suffer more than others because heat stalls in their neighborhood forming an even hotter pocket known as an urban heat island. Take, for example, the highly diverse and densely populated neighborhood of Alief in Southwest Houston. Alief’s nighttime temperatures in July average 82 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to the city’s overall average of 79.4 degrees. The higher temperatures can raise energy bills, levels of air pollution, and heat-related illnesses in a neighborhood already struggling with high asthma rates and energy burdens. That’s why Greenlink Analytics recently developed a new and novel data set examining Urban Heat Intensity for the country’s largest metro areas. “Our Urban Heat Index translates a census tract’s temperatures into a severity score from 1 to 10 relative to other tracts in the city," says Sharanya Madhavan, lead data scientist for Greenlink’s UHI project. “By looking at different temperatures, we can better understand the urban heat island effect, identify the neighborhoods disproportionately affected by heat, and begin to see the relationship between heat and other burdens.” The average Urban Heat Intensity score in Houston is 5.9. Alief’s is 10, meaning it has a high heat island effect and is disproportionately hotter than other neighborhoods around them. Here’s how we arrived at that number. Greenlink Analytics utilized satellite imagery to capture nighttime temperature for the 379 largest [Image: Urban Heat Index for Houston] metropolitan areas in the United States down to the resolution of one square kilometer. Temperatures were analyzed for the hottest months of the year – May through August.. It’s the next step of scrutiny that sets the data apart. Greenlink analyzed temperature gaps from month to month to pinpoint the month with the largest heat disparities in each city. In Houston, it’s July. In Atlanta it’s May. In Denver it’s August. The goal was to assess the disparities in heat burdens, says Madhavan, since the data shows people having very different experiences related to heat within the same city and month. The month with the highest temperature differential was then converted to a heat intensity score using a percentile system. This allows each city to better understand how any neighborhood compares to others. “This data can help inform policies that reduce heat islands and alleviate the cascade of burdens that accompany extreme heat, such high energy burden and asthma rates, making life harder to handle and bear,” says Madhavan. Many city neighborhoods across the country have a high heat island effect. Urban heat islands form when cities cover land with buildings, concrete, asphalt, and other solid surfaces in population dense places. These hardscapes absorb the sun’s heat during the day and refract it at night, keeping the area hotter than normal. Low-income neighborhoods are frequently hotter than wealthier ones due to systemic differences in the way the communities are designed, developed, and maintained. Relevant data is vital for addressing the disproportionate burden heat can cause. The Urban Heat Intensity data set will launch inside the Greenlink Equity Map the first week of August 2022.

For Immediate Release URBAN HEAT INDEX Heat’s Uneven Hold on City Neighborhoods [Atlanta, Georgia, July 28, 2022] — It’s not always cool to be hot. That’s particularly true in some city neighborhoods around the country where heat stalls forming an even hotter pocket known as an urban heat island. Take, for example, the highly diverse and densely populated neighborhood of Alief in Southwest Houston. Alief’s nighttime temperatures in July average 82 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to the city’s overall average of 79.4 degrees. The higher temperatures can raise energy bills, levels of air pollution, and heat-related illnesses in a neighborhood already struggling with high asthma rates and energy burdens. That’s why Greenlink Analytics recently developed a new and novel data set examining Urban Heat Intensity for the country’s largest metro areas. “Our Urban Heat Index translates a census tract’s temperatures into a severity score from 1 to 10 relative to other tracts in the city," says Sharanya Madhavan, lead data scientist for Greenlink’s Urban Heat Index project. “By looking at different temperatures, we can better understand the urban heat island effect, identify the neighborhoods disproportionately affected by heat, and begin to see the relationship between heat and other burdens.” The average Urban Heat Intensity score in Houston is 5.9. Alief’s is 10, meaning it has a high heat island effect and is disproportionately hotter than other neighborhoods around them. Here’s how we arrived at that number. Greenlink Analytics utilized satellite imagery to capture nighttime temperature for the 379 largest metropolitan areas in the United States down to the resolution of one square kilometer. Temperatures were analyzed for the hottest months of the year – May through August. It’s the next step of scrutiny that sets the data apart. Greenlink analyzed temperature gaps from month to month to pinpoint the month with the largest heat disparities in each city. In Houston, it’s July. In Atlanta it’s May. In Denver it’s August. The goal was to assess the disparities in heat burdens, says Madhavan, since the data shows people having very different experiences related to heat within the same city and month. The month with the highest temperature differential was then converted to a heat intensity score using a percentile system. This allows each city to better understand how any neighborhood compares to others. Urban heat islands form when cities cover land with buildings, concrete, asphalt, and other solid surfaces in population dense places. These hardscapes absorb the sun’s heat during the day and refract it at night, keeping the area hotter than normal. Low-income neighborhoods are frequently hotter than wealthier ones due to systemic differences in the way the communities are designed, developed, and maintained. Relevant data is vital for addressing the disproportionate burden heat can cause. The Urban Heat Index data set will launch inside the Greenlink Equity Map the first week of August 2022. For more information: Robynne Boyd, Communications Manager, Greenlink Analytics, (415) 516-7625, rboyd@greenlinkanalytics.org