Moscow works toward energy solutions

The city of Moscow is eager to tackle the issue of climate change for its municipal buildings, parks and lands, but will need to work with the public sector to meaningfully reduce carbon emissions among its residents.

During a climate action workshop Monday at City Hall, staffers presented research on energy usage and detailed the city’s efforts to reduce its carbon emissions and how that compared with the community as a whole.

“As we saw in the slides, the public sector is using the vast majority of carbon in this community,” Art Bettge, a member of the Moscow City Council, said. “The city does pretty well. We’ve got to get buy-in from the rest of our residences if we’re going to get clean.”

The city is beginning the process of drafting a comprehensive plan for tackling climate change that could be ready for public comment and a vote by the council as early as spring 2022.

Deputy City Supervisor Tyler Palmer said the city celebrated a milestone at its climate workshop last April. Staff had succeeded in reducing carbon emissions from city operations by 20 percent before 2020.

“That was a big accomplishment,” he said. “But in the meeting, we were tasked by the council to come back with more information.”

The reductions over the last decade were the result of carbon offsets as well as Avista’s My Clean Energy Program, according to Kelli Cooper, an environmental education and sustainability specialist at the city. Roughly 72 percent of all city operations emissions are offset by carbon sequestration and participation in the Avista program.

Carbon sequestration is the process of reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide, the most commonly produced greenhouse gas. To increase sequestration, Cooper proposed planting native plants and increasing the acreage of trees in the city.

Much climate action planning is already being done, she says, it just might have a different name, like stormwater management, water conservation, hazard mitigation or alternate fuel transition.

According to a climate change impact assessment, Cooper reported more frequent and intense heat waves, longer and more intense fire seasons, a reduced snowpack and an increased risk of flooding, among other consequences.

“I don’t know how many more days I can stand, especially as someone who doesn’t have air conditioning, the amount of heat and smoke we had this summer,” she said. “These are things we need to consider in our planning.”

Both Cooper and Palmer proposed the council join two clean energy campaigns: Race to Zero and Ready for 100.

Students at the Moscow High School asked the city to commit to the Ready for 100 campaign and reduce greenhouse gas emissions completely by 2045 during a protest Friday at East City Park. Some of those students also attended the Monday workshop.

“The campaigns aren’t mutually exclusive,” Palmer said. “They’re both doing very important things and it’s something the city can pursue simultaneously.”

Support for a stronger climate initiative was unanimous among the city councilors, who appeared excited at the propensity for implementing solutions.

Councilor Anne Zabala and Mayor Bill Lambert thanked the community members whose activism pushed the representative body towards a commitment. The city’s ultimate goal is to be carbon free by 2050 with an interim goal at 2030.

“I know this problem feels very urgent for a lot of people, myself included,” Zabala said. “Balancing the time to make something we feel good about committing to and recognizing the urgency is really important.”

Palermo can be reached at apalermo@dnews.com or on Twitter @apalermotweets.