SO WHAT?
Making Sense of the Numbers
RII includes data from cities representing nearly half of Minnesota’s population. It includes municipalities of varying sizes and types — from the state’s largest urban cores to mid-sized suburbs to rural centers as small as 500 people. Through the process of compiling over ten years of data for these cities, certain trends have emerged. Key findings are visualized and explained below.
Call To Action
RII provides local government elected officials, staff, and community members with city-wide data and tools to inform their climate planning and action. The RII team recommends the following calls to action:
- Take high-impact action.
- Stop installing new gas equipment in buildings.
- Transition to heat pumps for space and water heating.
- Improve the insulation and air sealing in homes in order to make them less vulnerable to changes in weather. Do this for low-income households first, as these are the most vulnerable to extreme weather.
- Reduce reliance on vehicle travel by:
- Reexamining zoning patterns and regulations to encourage closer proximity between residents and businesses,
- Supporting public transportation,
- And implementing Complete Streets that support pedestrian and bike infrastructure. Strategies like adding more street trees can encourage more walking, increase economic activity, improve air quality, reduce urban heat, and sequester carbon.
- For the vehicle trips that are still needed, support the rapid adoption of electric vehicles by ensuring adequate charging infrastructure and ensure equitable access to EVs by supporting things like affordable car-share programs.
- Advocate for state and federal action.
- Clean energy
- More impactful energy codes for both commercial and residential new construction
- Large scale investment in building electrification and electric vehicles
- And even the institutionalization of data collection efforts like this one, by setting up systems to streamline community-scale energy data reporting and ensuring funding is available for ongoing data collection for all Minnesota communities.
- Leverage city-specific opportunities.
- Cities that expect a lot of new development in the coming decade can ensure that zoning and planning approvals prioritize higher density housing, mixed use areas, and transit-oriented development.
- They can also implement a sustainable building policy to achieve better energy efficiency and local renewable energy development than is required by code.
- Cities served by a utility that doesn’t plan to transition to carbon-free electricity can invest in local renewables or can perhaps enter a partnership with its utilities to meet its goals.
- Cities that host large institutions or industries can work together on these topics.
- Concentrated areas with diverse heating and cooling loads can share their waste heat through district energy systems.
- Cities with a large percentage of a certain type of building – whether restaurants, manufactured homes, or something else – can target programs to these buildings.
- And nearly every city will have local people with specialized knowledge, connections, and passion that can be transformative. Climate action in several Minnesota communities has been accelerated by high-schoolers participating in the iMatter program.
- Create a work plan.
- Track your progress.
We all have a pretty good idea of what needs to happen in order to meet our climate goals and this work becomes more urgent every single day. So don’t feel like you need the latest data or the perfect plan before you can act. You can act now to:
We’ve seen that state and federal policies can effectively drive change – from federal appliance standards to the state’s clean electricity standards, conservation improvement program requirements, and biofuel mandates. State and federal policies or funding could advance:
Local governments as well as residents can leverage city-specific opportunities that can be found by either looking at the data, doing scenario planning, or simply through local knowledge. For example:
We said you don’t have to have a plan to take action, but it is a good idea to document some of your decisions to commit to priorities, understand who needs to be involved, and provide a way to hold decision-makers accountable.
Finally, track your progress. There are a lot of different variables in play, and it’s easy to assume that your actions will make a difference… Prove it and adjust your approach accordingly.