Column: For Oahu, climate progress is pathway for economic recovery

The twin crises of COVID-19 and climate change are good examples of the kinds of increasing and compounding 21st century shocks and stresses facing our island community. The city Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency has seen these realities firsthand in 2020, with our staff serving in the city emergency operations center for both COVID-19 and hurricane responses alike. It’s clear that the faster we build community and climate resilience, the safer we’ll be — but also the better off we’ll be economically.

The problem is building that resilience can be tough. While many with economic interests in the status quo will say they don’t oppose sustainability or deny climate change, they quickly follow with “but start with someone else first,” or “we can’t move too fast.”

The problem with climate change — like COVID-19 — is that it doesn’t care what people think or what business interest might deem “politically palatable.” The science and speed of both don’t lie, and we ignore them at our peril.

Thankfully, Hawaii has the largest majority of citizens in the nation who understand the urgency of climate resilience and have demanded real solutions instead of hollow words. Over the past four years, then-Mayor Kirk Caldwell and the City Council have quietly answered that call and worked together to lay a foundation for a “green” economic recovery with an impressive series of strong climate policies.

We developed an islandwide resilience strategy informed by thousands of community voices. We revamped our building codes to ensure every new house is wired for solar panels and electric vehicles. We started the move away from single use plastics to protect our oceans and health.

We changed streetlights across the island to LED bulbs, and are now focusing on energy-efficient equipment and renewable- energy systems throughout our park system and city buildings. We filed suit to hold oil corporations responsible for 50 years of climate deception and protect Oahu taxpayers from millions in climate damages. We put into law a mandate for carbon neutrality by 2045, and a fossil fuel-free fleet by 2035 — but also acted on it by building charging infrastructure and adding the first of what eventually will be hundreds of cleaner, quieter electric busses to our city routes.

The result is that Honolulu is now in pole position as the Joseph Biden administration unveils new programs and funding aimed squarely at tackling climate change, investing in infrastructure, accelerating renewable energy and transportation electrification, and providing more stimulus funding to jumpstart an economic recovery from COVID-19.

The baton will now be passed to a new administration and new City Council who will need to work hard to continue to transition the city fleet, add bike lanes, adopt an aggressive Climate Action Plan, expand micromobility, install renewable energy on city facitilities, and keep Honolulu in the Paris climate agreement.

Happily, all of these actions will not only position us well to capture federal funding over the next four years, it will help create jobs and diversify an economy that for too long has placed all of its eggs in the tourism basket.

Let’s keep our climate policies strong to attract every dollar we can to build green infrastructure, install renewable energy, expand electric vehicle chargers, move or elevate roads, and put the state with the highest unemployment figures back to work building a safer and more self-sufficient island home. The path to long-term security and economic recovery is directly rooted in building resilience.

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On vacation: Star-Advertiser columnist Richard Borreca is off; he returns on Jan. 10.

Josh Stanbro is past executive director of the city’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency.