Austin City Council approved $1 million from the Environmental Protection Agency for the first part of the two-phase Climate Pollution Reduction Grant, aimed to help curb air pollution effects on Sep. 21.

The Austin Office of Sustainability is currently working on creating a priority climate plan and coming up with potential projects reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan statistical area. Zach Baumer, Austin’s Interim Chief Sustainability Officer, said he hopes this collaboration incentivizes more people to take action on climate change.

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El ayuntamiento aprueba la aceptación de la subvención para la reducción de la contaminación climática

“The hope is that we get more regional … collaboration on this topic, and that those cities are inspired to take their own action and fund their own projects in the future,” Baumer said. “Greenhouse gasses and addressing climate change are far away, but when we get back to it, it improves air quality and improves safety and improves people’s lives.”

Dev Niyogi, William Stamps Farish chair professor, said the first step to addressing climate change is having conversations and looking into different local approaches.

“None of these conversations are happening with just one person sitting but having a group of cities … talking to each other,” Niyogi said. “This is really not about enforcement of any sort. This is really about helping businesses and communities with what kind of approaches can help them to thrive and sustain.”

The second phase of the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant is a competitive grant where cities apply for funding to implement projects outlined in the priority climate plan.

“A long-time problem of these plans is that you write down all these great ideas on how you’re going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how we’re going to address climate change,” Baumer said. “But if you don’t have money to pay to actually implement the project, then there wasn’t a whole lot of point to developing the plan.”

Niyogi said it’s important to pay attention to issues related to climate locally to lead to further global change.

“The most important things that we need to deal with … things that are happening in our neighborhood in our city,” Niyogi said. “Whether it is from heat, whether it is from pollutants … they are interlinked … and so it makes sense to address these issues as part of the same system.”