Ramsey County covers transportation, buildings, land use in new Climate Equity Action Plan

CATHY WURZER: This morning, Ramsey County formally adopted its Climate Equity Action Plan, which was finalized earlier this year. It includes a list of goals meant to help reduce the county's role in creating greenhouse gases and help it adapt to the impacts of climate change. An earlier report found that downtown Saint Paul and areas along highways would be especially vulnerable to extreme heat and poor air quality. It also identified factors that could make people more vulnerable to stressors caused by extreme weather and diseases that come from mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas.

In 2022, the county hired Abigail Phillips to collect input from community members and create this new plan. Abigail is on the line. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: Hi, Cathy. Thank you for having me.

CATHY WURZER: So it looks like you have several tent poles here. The plan includes goals for buildings, land use, transportation, a whole lot more. What are some of the biggest priorities?

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: That's a great question. So our plan aligns with six focus areas that relate to the state of Minnesota's climate action framework. And within each of those six focus areas, there are near-term, mid-term and long-term actions. All of them are important priorities for the county, but some of them are more achievable for us in the short term. So in relation to clean transportation, for example, maintaining and improving multi-modal transportation connections to reduce air pollution, connect communities, and encourage active transportation and public transit use is a main goal.

CATHY WURZER: So it sounds like transportation would be probably the area that the county has the most sway over, I would assume, right?

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: I actually think we have quite a bit of sway over each of these six focus areas. We have a huge parks and recreation department that will be focused on climate-smart natural land goals. We have an economic growth and community investment service team that does a ton of work around building a clean economy and focusing on clean energy and efficient buildings. And then our public health department is taking the lead in our healthy lives and thriving communities work.

CATHY WURZER: I think some folks might be surprised to hear that certain neighborhoods might be more vulnerable to climate change impacts. Can you drill down on that a little bit more?

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: Sure. So we have a climate change vulnerability assessment that was conducted in 2016. And we're actually in the process of updating that report so there will be more current data available later this year. But essentially, the report analyzes GIS data to determine where urban heat island effect and air pollution sources create more intense climate change impacts.

CATHY WURZER: So in Ramsey County, that would be, I would presume, Saint Paul, downtown Saint Paul, to be specific, right?

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: There's a lot of vulnerability--

[CLEARS THROAT]

--excuse me, isolated in the downtown Saint Paul area. But if you look at the report, you'll see vulnerability extends along all of our highway corridors and aligns pretty well with low-income neighborhoods as well.

CATHY WURZER: Let's talk about the inequities that the county is trying to address with this plan. Can you go into that a little bit in depth?

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: Yeah, so it's really important when you're thinking about the impacts of climate change to consider equity. We know that nobody is immune to any of these impacts, but under-recognized and climate-vulnerable communities are the most affected due to the compounding effects of racism, poverty, chronic illness, and other life stressors. Actually, just this morning, when our board of commissioners adopted our Climate Equity Action Plan, Commissioner Reinhardt stated it well. She said, emergencies don't discriminate, responses do. So with that in mind, our plan emphasizes actions that each of our county departments can take to reduce these disparate impacts on Ramsey County communities.

CATHY WURZER: And I'm curious what you heard from just normal individuals who you talk to when you were preparing this report.

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: It was so interesting. So we met with individuals through online listening sessions, collected information via virtual surveys, and held in-person community conversations. And almost across the board, folks just wanted to learn. They wanted to understand what the impacts of climate change are, what resources are already available to them to address these impacts, and what direction the county is headed in down the road. In addition to that, folks are also very concerned with the mental health impacts of climate change and the ways in which climate change impacts, intersects economic vulnerability.

CATHY WURZER: You mentioned at the top of the interview that the plan is divided into near, mid, and long-term actions. I'm wondering what do the near term actions look like? How fast can the county move and what might you be looking at?

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: So we're already moving. I would say there are a handful of actions within the plan that are already in motion and have been in motion for quite a long time. We've just convened what we're calling a climate change governance team, which is composed of department directors from every county service team who are working to prioritize those near-term actions and identify resources needed for the work.

That's happening now. We had our first meeting with that group a couple of weeks ago, and they're currently looking at prioritizing those actions. We also have or we're also convening an equitable climate action resident advisory team to continuously review and provide feedback on progress that we're making to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of under-recognized and climate-vulnerable residents. And that's in motion right now, too. We'll have the first meeting with that group in early June.

CATHY WURZER: So you mentioned that you met with the county board here earlier this morning. What were some of the questions that popped up that surprised you?

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: There were actually no questions this morning, and that's because we had a workshop with them a couple of weeks ago to dive into the details of the plan. The county board was unanimously supportive of the plan-- of adopting the plan this morning. But if anyone wants to watch that workshop from a couple of weeks ago, it is available online.

CATHY WURZER: I understand you worked with graduate students from the U of M on this?

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: We did, yes. The University of Minnesota's Resilient Communities Project is amazing. Shout out to them. We worked with a group, a large group of master's students, to develop a inclusive and iterative engagement plan to ensure that we continue looking at the ways that we're engaging with community and improving those based on feedback from community and data that relates to vulnerability.

CATHY WURZER: So you've done a lot of work, especially with the grad students, and you have county board sign off here. Final question would be this-- there are some goals in this report that seem to depend on funding, really, and partnerships with other governments. How far are you on getting some of that done?

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: That's a really important and strong question. We're just in the beginning. We have some of those-- some of those goals align with areas of work that are already resourced with funding and staff capacity in the county. And some of them need both significant funding and additional staff to complete the work. And that's exactly what our climate change governance team is working to understand and then transparently communicate back to communities so that community understands why some actions are going to take longer than others.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Abigail, thank you for your time.

ABIGAIL PHILLIPS: Yeah, thank you so much, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: We've been talking to Abigail Phillips. She is Ramsey County's climate action planner.