Supporting Community Efforts to Address a Changing Climate
From 2018-2021, the DEP partnered with ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability to offer training to PA local governments interested in pursuing climate action in a program they called the Local Climate Action Program (or, LCAP). They structured this by working with faculty and students from colleges and universities around the state. Students were helping local governments complete greenhouse gas emissions inventories and draft climate action plans. Talk about awesome real world experience in a class!
Then in 2021, DEP offered Penn State the opportunity to take over LCAP. We enthusiastically said yes, and Peter Buck and I have been co-directing the program ever since! We have now worked with almost 40 local governments - mostly municipalities but some regional orgs, counties, and even the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources over 4 academic years and 70 students to do greenhouse gas emissions inventories and support climate planning. About half of the students who've completed the program with us have been World Campus students in ESP and RESS!
Local governments are on the front lines of the impacts of climate change and up to 70% of carbon emissions occur in cities. So it makes perfect sense that we'd try to tackle this problem at this scale too. Now, not everything is under the jurisdictional control of a local government, but they do have particular influence in land use planning which directly corresponds to the resulting transportation emissions and sequestration opportunities. Beyond that, working on climate at the local level gives us a chance to help the places we live, work, and play be better prepared for a changing climate. And now, with the rise of AI energy demand and the rush to build out data center campuses, local governments once again find themselves in the middle of energy and climate decision-making.