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.
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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.