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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 3, 2015)
Street Roots • July 3-9, 2015 Commentary Page 13 City’s Climate Action Plan avoids region’s biggest climate issue BY NICK CALEB Kshama Sawant’s strong leadership recently convinced a majority of Seattle’s City Council to pass a resolution urging Washington state ast week, Portland City Council to remove state preemption on rent control. approved an update to the Climate Furthermore, advocacy groups are calling for Action Plan. As a candidate for City Council, I would like to weigh in with some the issue of $500 million in bonds to fund the construction of housing for houseless, low- ideas for how we can achieve a sustainable income and working families on city-owned and equitable community. For context, I have land. Our City Council hasn’t even taken up worked closely with grassroots organizers to the issue of no-cause evictions. oppose the Pembina propane export terminal Out of sheer necessity, residents and and strengthen the Climate Action Plan. community groups are beginning to organize Despite several positive late additions, the strong grassroots housing campaigns, but the public process and resulting plan fail to city must be flexible in giving more power address significant elements of the struggle away to its residents to shape the city. for climate justice and Portland’s duty to Rather than simply asking people to tolerate ensure it. the massive changes they see, the city should •Environmental and social justice are build support for its plans by empowering inseparable. A high-density city with residents and including them in important tremendous bike infrastructure and strong decisions at the beginning of processes so resource and efficiency standards is a worthy that they can shape their own communities. goal, but not unless existing residents can Consent has to be earned by building trust actually afford to stay to enjoy its benefits. and involving the community in meaningful Similarly, policy (or lack thereof) that ways. The right to shape the future of the displaces our most vulnerable residents is city must belong to all of its residents, not environmentally unjust no matter what eco- simply those who “ can amass the capital for friendly infrastructure appears after the fact. large developments. Chasing after green abstractions while Importantly, the Native American Youth ignoring the basic human right to housing and Family Center (NAYA), the Asian Pacific runs afoul of climate justice. The city has American Network of Oregon (APANO), the charted a course toward a magnificent green Coalition of Communities of Color (CCC), city that only the wealthy will be able to OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon and afford to inhabit, and one that will see our other community groups are constructing most vulnerable communities suffer the their own climate resiliency plans because “our region’s climate resilience ipfrastructure worst „effects of climate change. At present, a poorly regulated market is grows increasingly fractured and largely benefits wealthier, whiter neighborhoods,” as decimating our community, from the rapid reported in the Portland Mercury last week. transformation of North and Northeast The People’s Plan from the Portland African Portland to the wave of displacement that American Leadership Forum (PAALF) is pushes east of 82nd Avenue. The city of another exciting example of community-led Portland has to intervene in order to protect planning. The city must support self- its residents. Though Portland is pre-empted determination for low-income residents and by the state of Oregon from legally utilizing communities of color as we build a tools like raising the minimum wage, sustainable city. inclusionary zoning, rent control and real- On a different note, both the Climate estate transfer taxes, the city isn’t fighting Action Plan and the commentary from our very hard to regain these tools nor is it city leaders mostly avoid the Biggest climate experimenting with the crop of new policy issue in our region: the cumulative ideas popping up in almost every major greenhouse gas effect of fossil fuels being American city. If one looks to Seattle, C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T B Nick Caleb is a Concordia University Professor and a Portland resident. = 3 PHC N orthwest Beyond Limitations“ 5312 NE 148th Ave. Portland, or 97230 Free career training for persons with disabilities in janitorial and building maintenance R equirem ents: • * * -A Documented proof o f disability Profiaency in understanding and speaking English Pass criminal backgrotnd check Pass drug test D isab ilities: Physical, m ental health, intellectual, d e v e lo p m e n ta l, a n d lea rn ing Q u estions ? Please Call: (503) 261 -1266 or (800) 874-7917 email: careers@phcnw.com exported through the Pacific Northwest to Asian markets. The Sightline Institute in Seattle estimates that if all new proposed facilities are constructed, the quantity of fossil fuels slated for export from the Northwest will dwarf the Keystone XL Pipeline project by five times and push us over the point of no return toward runaway global heating. At present, we have a narrow window to draw down global emissions in order to have a chance at lessening the impacts of potentially catastrophic climate change. Given this context, the most significant thing that Portland could do right now to stem greenhouse gas emissions is to ban new fossil fuel export, transfer and storage infrastructure, including for natural gas and propane. Our city is host to an oil export facility operated by Arc Logistics and the Port of Portland has communicated its strong intention to export gas, despite emerging science that calls into question the assertion that natural gas and propane are clean fuels. During natural gas extraction, methane escapes from wells. Because methane is such a potent greenhouse gas (at least 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term and 30 times in the long term), only a small amount of it needs to leak during extraction for the “clean burning” advantages of gas to be entirely erased. New studies show that methane leaks at natural gas sites can make the fuel as carbon-intensive as coal over its entire life-cycle. As a climate leader, Portland should be strongly opposing any long-term investment in an industry that could delay the traösition to a truly renewable energy based economy. If Portland were to act to stop the expansion of the dirty fossil-fuel economy, we would set a precedent that could resonate throughout the region. With Seattle city commissioners imposing procedural impediments to and participating in blockades against Shell’s Arctic oil drilling rigs, we should demand a comparable level of audacity from our own city government as we try to stem climate disruption.
