Charlotte is about to get some extra help in attracting federal dollars to become a more sustainable city — it's among 25 U.S. cities selected for the Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities initiative.
The goal of the three-year partnership is to help local governments complete sustainable energy, transportation, and infrastructure projects by offering support staff and technical assistance.
The city has a long way to go toward making its climate goals, WFAE reported last December. Only a small percentage of the city's fleet has been converted to electric vehicles. There are policies in place to help promote climate-friendly development, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll have the desired effect.
Sarah Hazel, Charlotte’s chief sustainability and resiliency officer, said the initiative focuses on growing the city sustainably and addressing racial wealth inequity. The American Sustainable Cities initiative provides each city with its own three-person team.
Hazel says the team’s role will not be to come in with their own initiatives, but to collaborate on “efforts that are deeply important to existing community members.” The team, she says, will embed itself in City Hall and work with community partners who are already established in the community to set development priorities.
A city news release listed potential projects for the initiative to focus on: lowering city emissions, building energy-efficient housing, and planning for the impacts of climate change.
Bloomberg Philanthropies, a nonprofit started by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, created the American Sustainable Cities initiative to help local governments access existing federal funding. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act earmarked $400 billion for local governments, creating grant programs that include money for building transportation infrastructure, improving natural hazard resilience, and reducing energy use and emissions.
“It's both a recognition of the City's commitment to address these challenges and the work they have done so far,” said Shannon Binns, founder of local nonprofit Sustain Charlotte. Binns said he hopes that the additional resources will help the city continue work to lower climate pollution, “especially in disadvantaged communities historically overburdened by pollution.”
In 2019, Charlotte participated in the Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge and received assistance upgrading its vehicle fleet and boosting transit service.
“Cities are places that emit the most carbon emissions,” said Hazel, “but they’re also places that can be incredibly innovative.”
