GreenWorks Shows Climate Politics is Local

On Friday Massachusetts House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo unveiled a plan that, if adopted, will allocate more than $1 billion to help municipalities fund renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate resilience projects. The aptly named GreenWorks program will invite cities and towns to apply for competitive grants administered by the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. Commenting on the proposal, Speaker DeLeo emphasized that the plan is intended to support “every single city and town no matter what their needs may be.”

GreenWorks is the latest in a growing list of state programs that aim to incentivize local governments to act on climate change. Last August, Governor Charlie Baker signed a bond bill allocating $2 billion to support a myriad of municipal adaptation projects, including investments in coastal infrastructure, wetland restoration, and the rehabilitation of inland waterways. The bond bill included a $75 million outlay for the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) grant program, which assists cities and towns in planning for climate-related impacts by funding vulnerability assessments, resiliency planning, and comprehensive hazard mitigation plans.

While climate change ranks high among voter concerns, state and federal officials have long struggled to devise policies that resonate at the district-level, in part because climate policy tends to lack observability. Put differently, although many voters support things like clean energy and emissions reductions, it is difficult for them to conceptualize how, exactly, these programs improve their day-to-day lives.

But programs like GreenWorks and MVP promise to turn this narrative on its head. By filtering money to the local level, they make climate change a far more salient local issue. They motivate cities and towns to take ownership of climate mitigation and resilience by encouraging them to develop plans that address pressing local concerns. As such, the importance of these programs is derived not only from the projects they fund, but in their ability to mobilize voter support for climate policy, quite literally, from the bottom-up.

Of course, GreenWorks is still very much a work in progress and a number of important policy details remain unanswered. First, it is unclear how policymakers intend to differentiate between GreenWorks and the MVP program, which already funds municipal adaptation programs. One obvious solution is to include language in the legislation specifying that GreenWorks only supports action-oriented projects, as opposed to the types of hazards assessments and planning initiatives funded by the MVP.

Second, it is unclear how GreenWorks grants will be evaluated, awarded, and distributed. In order to maximize the program’s impact, policymakers should consider including optional matching provisions in the law. Moreover, they should also consider funding public-private partnerships, if at all possible. While these requirements should be applied to all applicants, policymakers are behooved to find ways to reward communities willing to leverage multiple funding streams in order to support larger projects.

With all the hype surrounding the Green New Deal, it is easy to forget that climate change, is above all else, a local issue. From coastal flooding to investments in clean energy, municipalities truly are the front lines in the fight against climate change. Friday’s announcement indicates state policymakers are ready and willing to send reinforcements.