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Climate Mitigation and Adaptation News
January 30, 2023
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Stay up to date and follow the Capital Region Climate
Readiness Collaborative on social media!
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Opportunities, Tools, & Resources | |
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Creating a Climate Resilience District: A New Tool for Local Governments
February 1, 2023 | 3:00 - 4:00 PM
The effects of climate change are becoming more evident every day. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said we are in a "code red" condition to take action to reduce the rate and extent of global warming in order to avoid a catastrophe.
The webinar will feature California State Senator and SB 852 author Bill Dodd. We will also hear practical presentations on the financing opportunities under SB 852 from Senior Legislative Advocate at Nielsen Merksamer Geoff Neill and the process for setting up a CRD from Suzanne Smith, Executive Director of the Sonoma County Regional Climate Protection Authority. The event will be moderated by CivicWell Policy Director Roger Dickinson.
Register for this event here.
Building a Community-Centered Clean Economy
February 13, 2023 | 9:00 - 11:00 AM
Join Valley Vision on February 13th for this Building a Community-Centered Clean Economy event! This hybrid gathering brings together a second Climate, Justice, and Jobs Summit, while celebrating and launching the Sacramento Region Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF) planning efforts. This invitation is open to everyone, including community members, regional workforce and economic development stakeholders. The event will feature a video presentation from our Community First Listening Series and a live Community Panel discussion to speak directly to the CERF’s goals of creating high quality, accessible jobs in low carbon industries, with an emphasis on including those who are typically not represented in economic development processes. The CERF program presents a concrete opportunity to develop strategies, as well as create a path for community members to continue participating in this work.
Register for this event here.
Sacramento Regional Water Bank Stakeholder Forum
February 13, 2023 | 6:00 - 8:00 PM
The Regional Water Authority (RWA) is hosting another stakeholder forum for the Sacramento Regional Water Bank, a groundwater storage program utilizing the expansive reservoir under the urban core for storing water during wet times for use during dry times.
Register for this event here.
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The other ‘big one’: How a megaflood could swamp California’s Central Valley
Yale Climate Connections
When early settlers came to the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers before the California Gold Rush, Indigenous people warned them that the Sacramento Valley could become an inland sea when great winter rains came. The storytellers described water filling the valley from the Coast Range to the Sierra during these rare events. And their warnings became realized when Great Flood of 1861-62 hit. A six-week onslaught of at least 10 powerful Pacific storms in December and January carried mighty “atmospheric rivers” of subtropical moisture into California, dumping torrential rains in the valleys and prodigious snows in the mountains. Read this full article here.
Sacramento students of color and parents react to volatility caused by the climate crisis
CapRadio
On the night of Jan. 8, the winds howled and rain whipped around the trunks of Sacramento’s iconic trees. Kim McDaniel and her daughters were prepping for the first day of school in the new year when they received Sacramento City Unified School District’s message that its campuses would close. “I was feeling grateful that I didn't have to navigate and drive through such dangerous conditions,” said McDaniel, a McClatchy High School parent. When the storms calmed, she and her daughters drove through the streets of Sacramento taking in the carnage. Read this full article here.
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Federal and California tax relief for California storms
Nossaman
Federal and California tax agencies have announced several relief measures for taxpayers affected by the storms that started shortly before New Year’s Eve and ended (for the time being) on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Natural disasters – like wildfires or earthquakes of course – are familiar to Californians, but the geographic scope of this tax relief (like the storm damage) is unprecedented, affecting taxpayers up and down the state in 41 out of California’s 58 counties (including almost all coastal counties). Read this full article here.
Reversal of fortune: Gov. Newsom outlines plan to deal with budget deficit
CalMatters
California will delay some spending commitments, reverse recent steps to shore up its fiscal health and shift funding sources to limit the cuts it must make to close a projected $22.5 billion budget deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom said earlier this month. The shortfall, slightly less than the $24 billion that financial analysts for the Legislature estimated in November, will not prevent the state from fulfilling its ambitions of transforming education, homelessness, housing affordability and health care, the Democratic governor insisted. Read this full article here.
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Biden-Harris administration announces availability of $100 million through Inflation Reduction Act for environmental justice grants
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the availability of approximately $100 million for projects that advance environmental justice in underserved and overburdened communities across the country. This funding, made possible through President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, marks the largest amount of environmental justice grant funding ever offered by the Agency. EPA has published two Requests for Applications for this funding through the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving (EJCPS) Cooperative Agreement Program and the Environmental Justice Government-to-Government (EJG2G) Program. Read this full article here.
Six environmental justice policy fights to watch in 2023
Inside Climate News
Unprecedented federal funding will soon flow to some of the nation’s communities hardest hit by climate change, industrial pollution and racist practices like redlining. This money also presents what environmental justice advocates describe as the monumental task of ensuring those funds reach the communities most in need—namely, low-income families and communities of color that have historically borne the brunt of the nation’s environmental harms while benefiting least from environmental regulation. Read this full article here.
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FEMA surveying levee repairs in Sacramento County area impacted by major flooding
CBS Sacramento
The federal government has boots on the ground and up in the air assessing the damage and flood mitigation efforts across the region. "I thought it would be better to show them from the air than on the ground so they can connect the dots on what we've really saved out here, besides just farm ground and houses," said Leland Schneider with Reclamation District 800. Schneider put together a tour after emergency officials called and said FEMA was in town. He wanted to show them the levees along the Cosumnes River and emergency temporary repairs made after several breaches in their district earlier this month. Read this full article here.
Staying above water: How Sacramento's resilience kept floodwaters away
CBS Sacramento
Sacramento, nicknamed the indomitable city, came from its early years of resilience to keep California's Capitol where it is today. All of it happened in spite of flooding. Like the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers, time is at a confluence this week, too. The second week in January marks two historic floods in the city's history: 1850 and 1862. Add to it the recent flooding and atmospheric rivers that dropped record levels in January, and Sacramento's history is full of January floods. Read this full article here.
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Drought busters? Why Northern California storms could mean temporary relief in 2023
The Sacramento Bee
The hazardous weather bearing down on Northern California has flooded overwhelmed rivers and creeks, toppled trees and knocked out power to a storm-weary region. It also could be a short-term drought buster. Heavy rain and wind throughout the month of January, in addition to Sierra snow and flooding concerns. Read this full article here.
5 Ways California is storing water from winter storms
Office of Governor Gavin Newsom
California is taking urgent action to protect communities from climate-driven extremes in weather and expand the state’s capacity to capture storm runoff in wet years. “California isn’t waiting to act – we’re moving aggressively to modernize how we capture and store water to future-proof our state against more extreme cycles of wet and dry,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. “We’re expediting projects across the state to maximize stormwater capture and storage above and below ground during times like these, reshaping our water systems for the 21st century and beyond.” Read this full article here.
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Is your home at higher risk for wildfires? California updates map for first time in 15 years
The Sacramento Bee
After 15 years, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has updated its wildfire risk map, showing an increase in fire hazard in the state. The new Wildfire Hazard Severity Zone map updates fire hazards for unincorporated, rural areas of California — areas more susceptible to fires — and does not show wildfire risks for addresses in the city. “Ensuring Californians know the wildfire hazard in their area is critical to ensuring we all take the appropriate steps to prepare for wildfires,” said Chief Daniel Berlant, Cal Fire Deputy Director of Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation, in a news release earlier this month. “The updated map is the product of years of discussions and incorporates the latest science to provide a long-term outlook of an area’s wildfire hazard. Read this full article here.
85% of California's rural land now in 'high' or 'very high' risk for wildfires, new analysis shows
CBS Sacramento
The climate crisis is among the key factors in a new assessment that shows more than 85% of California's rural and unincorporated land is now in "high" or "very high" severity zones for wildfire danger, the state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) recently announced. California's new proposed Fire Hazard Severity Zone map, which analyzes only the land that Cal Fire is responsible for and is used for things like building standards, real-estate disclosures and future planning, is based on long-term data and created to last a decade or more. The previous version, which was done in 2007, was considered out of date. The amount of land in "very high" severity zones saw a significant jump, increasing by 14.6% in the fresh analysis. If the proposed map is approved, nearly 17 million acres -- an area larger than the state of West Virginia -- will be in Cal Fire's worst designation. Read this full article here.
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The Capital Region Climate Readiness Collaborative is a membership based collaborative network designed to promote greater climate change resilience planning coordination in the six-county Sacramento Region. The purpose of this collaborative network is to create a forum where leaders from government, academia, environmental and community groups, the business community, and labor can come together to exchange information, identify vulnerabilities and data gaps, leverage resources, and advance comprehensive solutions in an effort to create stronger, sustainable, and economically viable communities in the Capital Region.
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