Column: A New Year’s resolution for cities

When you make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, the scale doesn’t lie. You can tell your family you’re going to the gym even if you’re just standing on the treadmill watching CNN; you can order that salad when out with your friends at pau hana but then cheat on the way home with a burger and shake at the drive-thru. But after six months, the scale is going to tell you whether you’re really putting in the work.

So goes the climate “scale” for cities and states, the annual ranking by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The ACEEE, an independent group that monitors hundreds of detailed criteria, tells communities the honest truth about how they’re doing on all of those “pledges” that politicians regularly make about tackling the climate crisis and transitioning to a truly clean energy economy.

The 2021 annual ACEEE “weigh-in” was recently released, and it turns out certain cities have been eating their vegetables, staying away from the bar, and quietly exercising every morning — and Honolulu is one of the best performers in the nation.

This wasn’t luck. In fact, in 2015, Honolulu wasn’t even on the ACEEE list of cities making an attempt in this area. But in 2016, the voters of Honolulu made a resolution to change and overwhelmingly voted to establish the Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency via a charter amendment. Then-Mayor Kirk Caldwell took that vote seriously, and quietly took a “whole of government approach” to transitioning to a clean energy, climate-positive economy.

By 2019, Honolulu had turned around enough baseline policies to crack the top 50 ACEEE cities at No. 47. Just one year later, Honolulu climbed six more slots to No. 41 on the list. But the real jump would come in 2021, when the rear-view rankings captured a flurry of changes that took years to develop, but culminated in 2020 and early 2021 under Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s leadership. Along with Madison, Wis., and Charlotte, N.C., Honolulu was named one of the nation’s three “most improved” cities and catapulted 17 spots to No. 24. We essentially went from a couch potato to running the Honolulu marathon in four years.

The thing about “new you” resolutions, though, is they’re hard to keep if your family and friends aren’t supporting you. Honolulu was recognized nationally because we have an ohana that wants to get strong, too. All four counties pledged together in 2017 to eliminate fossil fuel from their fleets, and now you see 100% electric buses on the streets of Honolulu.

The state Public Utilities Commission welcomed Honolulu’s participation in the innovative Performance Based Rate Framework docket, transforming Hawaiian Electric’s approach to increasing renewables and grid resilience. And the private sector has embraced the challenge, with dozens of clean tech start-ups in Honolulu creating jobs while ramping up energy efficiency, charging electric cars and storing clean energy.

What will happen in 2022? Is Honolulu serious about becoming energy sovereign, warding off climate disaster, and cracking the ACEEE’s Top 20? Or will we give in to the temptations of that comfy old couch and a pint of ice cream? It’s up to us to keep up the momentum in this new year by continuing to pass strong climate policy. Our island future depends on it.

Josh Stanbro, Honolulu’s chief resilience officer from 2017-21, is a policy fellow with Elemental Excelerator.