Tree planting in Los Angeles (Photo: BitBoy/Flickr)
One of the California Economic Summit’s newest work groups is tackling one of the most complex challenges facing California: Climate change. It is a force to be reckoned with across regions throughout the state, impacting people and communities as well as public, private and institutional sectors.
Climate adaptation and mitigation hold potential for creating pathways for new industries, technologies, jobs and economic mobility. These are opportunities for prioritizing both climate and equity in decisions involving housing, transportation, career pathways, natural resource management and community investment. Within this challenge lie historic inequities affecting disadvantaged communities, communities of color and tribal communities, which call for addressing past harms at the same time investments are made in new resiliency measures.
The Summit’s new “Economic Prosperity in a Changing Climate” work group emerged through collaboration between the Alliance for Regional Collaboratives for Climate Adaptation (ARCCA), which seeks to build regional resilience to climate impacts, and the California Stewardship Network (CSN).
The work group, composed of many CSN members, is focused on understanding and making recommendations regarding regional climate adaptation, mitigation and climate equity, with a goal of improving future outcomes and driving greater shared prosperity for all Californians. The group seeks to build conversation, understanding and collective action between climate adaptation practitioners and broader audiences including groups working toward equitable economic development, sustainable environmental solutions and education and workforce initiatives.
This new work group will come together at the California Economic Summit in Bakersfield, October 27-28, to explore the intersection and alignment of climate and economy. Among the themes that will be explored are the ways in which Californians are experiencing climate challenges in various regions and cross-sector policy collaboration.
Goals include embedding climate and equity as fundamental elements in key policy decisions, integrating climate planning within CA FWD’s policy agenda, and promoting collaboration across climate and economic development stakeholders and across state and federal economic and climate programs.
Leading the work of this group are Evan Schmidt, CEO of Valley Vision, and Michael McCormick, partnerships lead and president and founder of Farallon Strategies.
