The Resilience Roundup highlights announcements and events along with links to the previous month's state, regional, and national resilience news.
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Resilient Connecticut Updates |
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CIRCA Research Team Update:
Norwalk and Danbury Heat Studies
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Results of urbanization like asphalt, dense buildings, and lack of vegetation cause these areas to retain more heat and create an "urban heat island effect". Timed with the summer season, CIRCA's research team deployed thirteen heat sensors (like the one shown on the right) throughout the city of Norwalk in June. These sensors measure relative humidity and dew point temperature at street level and the data collected will help identify urban areas vulnerable to extreme heat. To learn more about the Norwalk Heat Study click HERE. CIRCA will also be deploying six heat sensors in Danbury this month. Click HERE to learn more about the Danbury Heat Study.
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New Story Maps for Resilience Opportunity Areas
CIRCA launched four ESRI Story Maps highlighting the ROARs (Resilience Opportunity Areas) identified throughout the four COGs that participated in Resilient Connecticut 1.0 – WestCOG, MetroCOG, SCRCOG, and NVCOG. ROARs represent the intersection of climate-induced flooding and heat risks with vulnerable populations and planning priorities such as affordable housing, transit-oriented development, wastewater infrastructure, and drinking water infrastructure.
Municipalities and residents can use these interactive Story Maps to explore neighborhoods with strong potential for climate resilience projects alongside map layers that can be switched on to display measures of flood and heat vulnerability, social vulnerability, and other planning investments in each area. Seven of these ROAR sites have been selected for funding and implementation in Phase III of the Resilient Connecticut Project, with hopes that more will be funded in the future. This work is expanding statewide through 2023.
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Call for New and Returning GC3 Working Group Members for 2022!
The Governor's Council on Climate Change (GC3) is calling for members for its working groups for 2022. All new individuals interested in joining the GC3 working groups and individuals who served previously should fill out the survey to confirm if they wish to participate in a GC3 working group in 2022. In the survey you will have the opportunity to choose if you would like to serve on a GC3 working group and select your first and second choice of working groups. The survey will close at 5pm on July 15, 2022. Who should be on a GC3 working group? Anyone who is interested in and/or engaged with addressing climate change in Connecticut is invited.
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Sea Grant Funding: Translating Coastal Research into Application
Letter of Intent Due: June 15, 2022
Full Project Proposal Due: August 30, 2022
Sea Grant and the U.S. Coastal Research Program (USCRP) announce a new funding opportunity for collaborative projects to integrate research, its application, and community engagement in thematic areas of long-term coastal evolution, extreme storms, and human and ecosystem health. Proposals should address the needs or gaps that have been identified by or are evident from USCRP-funded projects. It is anticipated that approximately $4,000,000 will be available to fund 10-20 projects at up to $150,000 over two years (Tier 1) or up to $500,000 over four years (Tier 2). Matching funds are not required.
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NFWF: America the Beautiful Challenge 2022 Request for Proposals
Proposals Due: July 21, 2022
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is pleased to announce the launch of the America the Beautiful Challenge (ATBC) 2022 Request for Proposals. The ATBC vision is to streamline grant funding opportunities for new voluntary conservation and restoration projects around the United States. This Request for Proposals is a first step toward consolidating funding from multiple federal agencies and the private sector to enable applicants to conceive and develop large-scale, locally led projects that address shared funder priorities spanning public and private lands.
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EPA Let's Talk about Heat Challenge
Submissions Due: July 22, 2022
EPA and co-sponsors have launched the Let's Talk About Heat Challenge, a national competition to identify innovative and effective communication strategies that inform people of the risks of extreme heat and offer ways to keep safe during the hottest days. The challenge was developed in support of the National Climate Task Force's Extreme Heat Interagency Working Group. Winning solutions will include identification of and engagement with people known to be most susceptible to extreme heat risks, including but not limited to underserved and overburdened communities. Submission Form.
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Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast
Community Climate Resilience Grant Competition
Proposals Due: August 1, 2022
The Community Climate Resilience Grant Competition will award four one-year grants of $25,000 each to non-profit [501(c)(3)] organizations working with socially vulnerable groups on projects that prepare communities in the urban Northeast for hazards related to weather and climate, such as flooding and heat waves. These grants are designed to support projects that may include activities such as planning, data collection, vulnerability mapping, grant proposal development, network-building, and advancing nature-based solutions. Proposed projects should reduce risks of climate variability and change in vulnerable communities, identify strategies that improve preparedness and resilience, and enhance equity.
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2022 Transit-Oriented Development Grant Program Announcement
Proposals Due: September 1, 2022
Connecticut's Office of Policy and Management (OPM) announced a Request for Applications (RFA) for the 2022 Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Grant Program. Municipalities are invited to apply for grants ranging between $200,000 and $2,000,000, for a wide range of planning and construction projects to advance State, regional, and local goals for TOD. This program provides grants for shovel-ready capital projects located within one-half (1/2) mile of existing public transportation facilities. Interested applicants must meet the project eligibility requirements as detailed in the RFA.
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Learn about Energy Storage Solutions for Residential Customers Webinar
July 12, 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Attention homeowners! Please join this CT Greenbank sponsored webinar you are interested in learning more about Energy Storage Solutions, the electric storage incentive program for all Eversource and UI residential customers. Energy Storage Solutions will help lower the cost of buying a battery by providing an upfront incentive. Incentives are available for batteries paired with solar PV systems, as well as standalone batteries. Residential customers enrolled in the program will also receive performance incentive payments every year based on the average power your battery contributes to the grid during critical periods.
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Nature-Based Shoreline Approaches in Cold Climates Webinar
July 13, 2:30 - 4:00 p.m.
NOAA’s Coastal Resilience Grants are helping communities interested in increasing resilience to sea level rise, erosion, and flood events. This free webinar is part of a series designed to share lessons learned from these projects. Nature-based shoreline approaches are more prevalent in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Gulf regions, but this is changing for many Great Lakes and New England communities. This NOAA webinar focuses on how cold climate regions are advancing the science and use of nature-based shoreline approaches.
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Climate Leadership and Multisolving: A Conversation With Katharine Wilkinson of The All We Can Save Project
July 28, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Join the Multisolving Institute for a conversation with Katharine Wilkinson, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the The All We Can Save Project. Grounded in Dr. Wilkinson’s expertise in and vision of a leaderful and feminist climate movement, the conversation will explore the ways in which the climate crisis is also a leadership crisis. What type of leadership is needed today? How can we each find our unique contribution? They will also explore why working towards gender justice is vital to address climate change while also advancing the leadership and well-being of women.
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U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation: Building Resilience Through Private-Public Partnerships Conference
July 28-29
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation will convene in-person on July 28-29, 2022, in Washington, D.C. for its annual Building Resilience Through Private Public Partnerships Conference, now entering its 11th year. This year’s conference will explore the need for readiness strategies to improve resilience – bringing together key players from government, nonprofits, and the private sector to drive effective resilience programming through greater collaboration across sectors.
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Hurricane Season is Here
Now that hurricane season is here, it is time to get prepared and stay prepared for these storms. Connecticut State Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security's Hurricane Preparedness Guide provides a menu of resources to help keep families and businesses safe, before, during, and after a hurricane.
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Podcast: How The Climate Crisis is Affecting Connecticut’s Future
In a year dominated by gun control debates and the midterm elections, the climate crisis has taken a back seat. But we’re seeing its impact across the country and here in Connecticut. Listen for a discussion on the ways climate change has impacted our state, from an explosion of ticks to flooding on our shorelines, featuring Jim O'Donnell, Executive Director of CIRCA.
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Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center:
Heat Action Platform Tool
The Heat Action Platform is a living, engagement-oriented tool for city officials, practitioners, and financial institutions to find guidance, both existing resources and tailor-made solutions, on reducing the human and economic impacts of extreme heat at the regional or municipal level. The platform offers opportunities to engage with world-leading experts across a diversity of disciplines to plan, fund, implement, and measure heat resilience actions.
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FEMA and ASFPM: New National Flood Insurance Program
Training Now Available
FEMA and ASFPM team up to offer NFIP 101: Introduction to Floodplain Management. Local officials must know the basic requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for their communities. However, many do not have time to attend an in-person course that lasts four days or more. This self-paced course will take about 14-18 hours to complete. This training will help new and experienced floodplain administrators, emergency managers, elected officials, and others learn more about the NFIP and its requirements. NFIP 101: Introduction to Floodplain Management is free and does not require ASFPM membership.
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FEMA: Guide to Expanding Mitigation - Making the Connection to the Coast
FEMA's Guide to Expanding Mitigation is meant to encourage emergency managers, planners, coastal and floodplain managers, and other coastal decision makers to work together. When plans and projects are developed in collaboration, coasts can be managed more holistically. Goals like economic development, environmental protection, and public safety can be better met. This guide explains issues that affect coastal communities and offers resources to help spark ideas for holistic solutions.
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NOAA Nature-Based Solutions for Coastal Highway Resilience:
An Implementation Guide
This guide is designed to help transportation practitioners understand how and where nature-based and hybrid solutions can be used to improve the resilience of coastal roads and bridges. It summarizes the potential flood-reduction benefits, co-benefits, and site suitability assessments for these strategies. Considerations for engineering and ecological design, permitting, construction, and monitoring and maintenance are also provided. This implementation guide is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s focus on Nature-Based Resilience for Coastal Highways.
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State and Regional News Clips |
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Beach Grass Could Be Key to Protecting the Aquinnah Wampanoag Homeland
NPR - June 1, 2022
On a Massachusetts island, members of a Native American tribe are determined to protect their homelands from the impacts of climate change. Their solution - planting 20,000 stems of beach grass by hand, to make it more resilient.
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N.J. to Order Emergency Rules on New Construction
in Areas Slammed by Floods
NJ.com - June 1, 2022
Eight months after Tropical Storm Ida, Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration is preparing to implement emergency rules for new construction in certain flood-prone areas of New Jersey to help fortify the state as officials expect storms to become more frequent and volatile because of climate change. Officials say the rules will modernize how the state regulates development in areas at risk of non-tidal inland flooding caused by stormwater runoff.
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Why 13 Heat Sensors Have Been Installed Around Norwalk
New Haven Register - June 13, 2022
To address climate change concerns, the city has installed heat sensors to trees to track temperatures in different settings. The 13 non-invasive sensors were installed in Norwalk, as part of a partnership with CIRCA, according to a city statement. The sensors are temporary and will be in place for the next four months.
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Rhode Island Passes Bill to go 100% Renewable
E&E News - June 16, 2022
Rhode Island lawmakers voted this week to approve a bill that would require 100 percent of electricity sold in the state to come from technologies such as wind and solar by 2033. The measure represents one of the most ambitious state attempts to green the power sector in the United States.
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Mystic Aquarium is Part of Biden's Ocean Plan for Climate Change
Connecticut Public - June 21, 2022
A new plan from the Biden administration puts ocean conservation at the center of its climate change response. Connecticut’s Mystic Aquarium’s scientists have spent decades working on research in Long Island Sound that informed the plan.
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A ‘Living Shoreline’ Takes Root in New York’s Jamaica Bay
Inside Climate News - June 21, 2022
A “living shoreline” restoration project devised by the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy is showing early signs that new marsh grasses, protected by degradable jetties, could become a prototype for other coastal resiliency projects looking to protect habitats and coastlines from the increased storms and rising sea levels of climate change.
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Students Ask Greenwich Selectmen To Declare Climate Change Emergency
Patch - June 24, 2022
In an effort to demand action on climate change both locally and at the state level, a group of residents went before the Greenwich Board of Selectmen this week to ask the town to adopt a resolution that would declare a climate change emergency. Brought forth by the Greenwich Environmental Advocacy Group, the declaration would provide a foundation for the town to develop future priorities, policies, plans, budgets and actions related to climate change.
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Here’s How the Government Wants to Disaster-Proof Your Home
AP News - June 1, 2022
On the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season, federal officials launched a new initiative to modernize building codes so that communities can be more resilient to hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, and other extreme weather events that are intensifying due to climate change. Updated building codes provide a range of smart design and construction methods “that save lives, reduce property damage, and lower utility bills,” according to this news release.
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Inside Clean Energy: The US’s New Record in Renewables,
Explained in Three Charts
Inside Climate News - June 2, 2022
To make a swift transition to a cleaner grid, the United States needs to set records for renewable electricity generation pretty much every single quarter. So far in 2022, the numbers are encouraging. From January to March, renewable energy power plants generated 242,956 gigawatt-hours, which was 23.5 percent of U.S. electricity generation, both records—an increase from 19.5 percent in the first quarter of 2021.
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Carbon Dioxide Now More Than 50% Higher Than Pre-Industrial Levels
NOAA - June 3, 2022
Carbon dioxide measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory peaked for 2022 at 421 parts per million in May, pushing the atmosphere further into territory not seen for millions of years, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced.
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COP27 Must Keep a Resilient, 1.5°C Future Within our Grasp
WWF - June 6, 2022
Ahead of COP27, the stakes are higher than ever with an unfolding energy crisis and record-breaking global greenhouse gas emissions. When world leaders left COP26, it was clear that there were still loose ends to be tied up after a number of crucial decisions were deferred. The Glasgow talks succeeded – just – in their goal of keeping the Paris Agreement 1.5°C warming threshold within reach.
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Biden Administration Announces National Standards for Electric Vehicle Charging Networks
The Hill - June 9, 2022
The Biden administration announced new standards to expand electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure throughout the U.S. The rule will require EV charging stations every 50 miles and no more than a mile off the highway, emphasizing the interstate highway system and alternative fuel corridors, according to Buttigieg.
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Biden Admin: Stop Flood Insurance For New, Risky Homes
E&E News - June 13, 2022
The Biden administration is proposing a massive overhaul of federal flood insurance that would prevent the government from insuring newly built homes in flood-prone areas and would drop coverage for homeowners who receive repeated claims payments. The administration also is proposing a nationwide disclosure law that would require homebuyers and renters to be told about a property’s flood history before they buy or lease a residence.
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3 Steps Communities Can Take to Become More Climate-Resilient, According to Leaders Who Have Made Progress in Their Own Cities
Business Insider - June 13, 2022
Cities across the country are feeling the effects of climate change through more extreme weather events, flooding and sea-level rise, hotter temperatures, and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Being proactive and taking action now enables cities to embrace an array of solutions and strategies, which Price said will save money in the long run and protect the health and well-being of communities.
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Biden Administration Announces Historic Coastal
and Climate Resilience Funding
NOAA - June 29, 2022
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo announced funding opportunities from NOAA's $2.96 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds to address the climate crisis and strengthen coastal resilience and infrastructure. Over the next five years, NOAA’s targeted investments in the areas of habitat restoration, coastal resilience, and climate data and services will advance ongoing federal efforts toward building climate resilience.
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With Time Ticking for Climate Action, Supreme Court Limits
Ways to Curb Emissions
NPR - June 30, 2022
For two decades, Congress has failed to pass standalone climate change legislation.
That left the Obama White House to rely on the 1970 Clean Air Act in order to craft regulations that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, currently the second most carbon-polluting sector in the country. In its opinion in West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court has curbed what actions the Biden White House can take under that law.
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Supreme Court Deals Climate Change Fight a Major Blow in EPA Ruling
CT Mirror - June 30, 2022
In a blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to address the warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, a decision aimed at those power plants running on coal. While New England is down to a few highly polluting coal power plants, Connecticut still faces the effects of pollution from such plants to our west and the effects from climate change more broadly.
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The Resilience Roundup highlights CIRCA's presence in the news, provides links to recent local/state/national news articles related to resilience and adaptation, and announces upcoming events and seminars.
The Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation's (CIRCA) mission is to increase the resilience and sustainability of vulnerable communities along Connecticut's coast and inland waterways to the growing impacts of climate change and extreme weather on the natural, built, and human environment. The institute is located at the University of Connecticut's Avery Point campus and includes faculty from across the university. CIRCA is a partnership between UConn and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP).
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State and Regional News Clips |
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