by Dillon Frank
The message at the Nov. 15 community input meeting on the Prince George’s County Climate Action Plan was clear: if the county’s climate plan does not move forward, climate conditions will continue to worsen for residents.
The public comment period for the bill ended on Dec. 1. Now Department of the Environment Director Andrea Crooms is taking the comments and the bill to the Prince George’s County Council for approval, but there are plenty of obstacles for the plan, that commits the county to halve its carbon emissions by 2030.
According to Crooms, one obstacle is money. There aren’t enough funds available to implement the plan without both federal investment and private investment, she said. Community members carry a lot of influence, Crooms said, so she’s trying to garner public support.
But that public support is another obstacle, said Department of the Environment Associate Director Dawn Hawkins — not everyone knows about the plan.
“There are some people who are pretty engaged in this process, but there’s a lot of people who don’t know anything about it. And I think, like anything else to make something happen, people have to be involved. So education and creating awareness is really, really a big deal,” Hawkins said.
If the Climate Action Plan isn’t passed and funded, conditions will continue to worsen in Prince George’s County — and underserved communities will be hit the hardest, Crooms said.
Hawkins said the plan rests on two basic pillars.
“Our goals are, one, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through various actions and measures and, then, to help the county prepare for those climate changes that will occur just based on the amount of damage that we have done as residents, of the county as well as global residents, over the past decade,” Hawkins said.
Support from residents is critical for the plan to pass, Crooms and Hawkins said.
David Brosch is one of the community members whose support could make or break the plan. He’s lived in University Park for 41 years and is engaged in sustainability work — including at the Sierra Club. Brosch cited his grandchildren and younger generations as a large part of his reasoning for being locally engaged in sustainability work and for supporting the Climate Action Plan.
“I won’t be around that much longer, but they’re going to be around. I’ve lived a fairly good life but I am really concerned about my relatives and everybody around me so I hope we can all get in this together, kind of protect ourselves from what’s starting to happen,” Brosch said.
Abe recognizes the critical immediacy of establishing green infrastructure, including the Climate Action Plan, in order to build a better future.
“This challenge to change our way of living can be a new beginning. A start to what our world can and should become as we recognize and restore the intrinsic relationship between the earth’s health to our well-being,” said Abe.
Community members at the meeting said that the plan should have been put forward much earlier, since climate change has been of concern for decades. Crooms acknowledged that in the meeting.
Mary Abe, the section head of the Natural Resource Protection and Stewardship Programs at the Department of the Environment said, the community should look into the future, not just the missed opportunities in the past.
“The county’s ability to attract business may be impacted as the rest of our region adapts to climate change and transitions to renewable energy. We risk being economically left behind as our jurisdictional neighbors embrace change and thrive in a new green economy,” Abe said.
Featured image: The Nov. 15 meeting to gather input on the Climate Action plan. Photo by Dillon Frank.