Santa Barbara County 1st District Supervisor Salud Carbajal attended his fourth and final face-to-face meeting with President Barack Obama’s climate task force on July 16.
But Carbajal isn’t done with his national climate tasks just yet. The force of 26 state, local, and tribal leaders appointed by the Obama Administration now has to reduce the number of recommendations it’s come up with; the list is 500 ideas long at the moment. Carbajal said a final list would be ready this fall, but added that the recent meeting was about more than the future.
“The most significant thing about last week’s meeting was that the president announced a number of recommendations that could be implemented in the near term,” he said.
Those recommendations are a series of actions—including monetary incentives—designed to help state, local, and tribal governments prepare communities for the impacts of climate change. Those actions include a $10 million Federal-Tribal Climate Resilience Partnership and Technical Assistance Program that will help tribes prepare for climate change by developing adaptation training; new guidance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on state hazard mitigation plans for future environmental/weather disasters; and the Environmental Protection Agency launching a Green Infrastructure Collaborative among government agencies to advance green stormwater infrastructure.
A press release from U.S. Rep. Lois Capps’ (D-Santa Barbara) office said the president’s plan provides the resources to help communities rebuild stronger and safer after such natural disasters as drought, hurricanes, and flooding.
“These actions will help coastal states like California plan and implement important climate change mitigation projects, strengthen the resiliency of our drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems, and prepare our public health system for the increased demand and stress from climate change impacts,” Capps said in the press release.
Not everyone across the political spectrum agrees on climate change and how it’s impacting the planet, or even that such change exists at all, but Carbajal said there are some things people can’t argue about—such as the increase in extreme weather and natural disasters—and that’s where the Climate Task Force is focusing its recommendations.
“Some humans have trouble accepting that climate change is here,” Carbajal said. “If you focus on just preparedness and resiliency, nobody can ignore that.”
This article appears in Jul 24-31, 2014.