Jeanne Holm, Deputy Chief Information Officer, City of Los Angeles
Two main goals of the Paris climate agreement are to meet the 1.5 degree Celsius target and to create a 21st-century clean energy economy. Although the President is contemplating pulling out of this agreement, 379 cities (representing 68 million Americans) have announced that they will keep those commitments and work collectively to reduce greenhouse gasses regardless of whether the U.S. is part of the agreement or not.
Los Angeles is one of those cities. We are well aware of the impacts that climate change has on our environment and our residents. For example, Los Angeles, like other cities, has environmental shocks, some of which are exacerbated by climate change (such as severe weather, flooding, extreme heat and heat waves, and public health emergencies), as well as stresses (drought, high heat days, and sea level rise).
These disasters tend to exacerbate existing inequalities within our communities, causing previously disadvantaged populations to get absolutely and relatively worse off after these events. Our commitment to the climate agreement and to our vulnerable populations has led to several projects and advances in key environmental areas. Here we will review some of our ‘wins’ and discuss how smart city methods have played a role.
Making Advances in 6 Key Environmental Areas
In the spring of 2015, Mayor Eric Garcetti released the Sustainable City pLAn (http://plan.lamayor.org/), a roadmap for creating a more environmentally healthy, economically prosperous and equitable Los Angeles. In addition to that Plan, we have been working on a resilience strategy for the last year and a half in order to double down on our existing efforts. Our plan focuses on vision, outcome, strategy, and initiatives in 14 key areas. Here are some of the areas where we’ve made the biggest advances.
1. Local Water
LA is the most water efficient big city in the US. We have signed the most stringent water efficiency building codes of any big city, and aim to cut local water usage by 50 percent by 2025.
2. Local Solar
LA has installed the most solar power of any city in the US. We were also the first city to offer expedited online permitting for solar projects.
3. Energy Efficiency
LA has the most ambitious energy and water efficiency law for existing buildings of any US city.
4. Green Jobs
In LA we have created 20,000 green jobs, the most of any city in the US.
5. Environmental Justice
LA was the first big city to require farmer’s markets to accept EBT, as well as the first to roll out electric vehicle car share programs for low-income residents.
6. Urban Heat
LA is experimenting with cool roofs, cool pavement, planting trees and adding green infrastructure in an effort to reduce urban heat by 1.7 degrees by 2020.
Achieving Progress With the Help of Smart Cities Methods
Our environmental projects require recording, monitoring and analyzing data, and that’s where our smart city efforts come in. These efforts are coordinated by a team that works together in an integrated and collaborative way to assist in projects around the environment, economy, equity, and resiliency. This includes:
- Determining what we care about and what we want to measure before beginning a pilot.
- Figuring out what kind of sensors to use to collect the data we need.
- Gathering the data then making it open on our open data portal (https://data.lacity.org/) and through APIs, push notifications, and alerts.
- Federating data and analysis across deployed sensors.
- Activating citizen scientists and neighborhood councils.
- Monitoring performance with a sustainability dashboard that allows us to track data such as local water use, water quality, and air pollution.
- Using data for prediction and creating tools that will help the public (such as an upcoming earthquake early warning system).
These efforts require many City departments working together, including our Sustainability Office, the Mayor’s Office of Public Safety, the Mayor’s Office of Budget and Innovation, and the Information Technology Agency. Taking a smart city approach to environmental goals has allowed Los Angeles to implement successful pilots and achieve measurable results. The pillars of our success are the smart use of technology, the careful collection and analysis of data, and the collaborative environment we have created in our City government.