South L.A. among communities awarded state grants for climate projects
By
The Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles — With its smog and air pollution, its traffic problems and its housing costs in the highest in the country, it’s no wonder that the city is one of the hottest places to live on Earth.
But the city is also home to many of the country’s hottest places, and just four months into the year, it’s got some of the best performing climate projects on the planet.
It has some of the country’s most ambitious climate programs and highest-powered climate research, a combination that makes Los Angeles one of the best places in the world to study and learn how to solve the planet’s most pressing problems.
Today’s list of top-ranked climates, which was announced Thursday by the Obama Administration, is the culmination of six years of research and public-private partnerships to build the nation’s climate learning network system.
L.A. is among 21 communities nationwide. The others: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Miami. Together, these communities have invested more than $1.4 billion in climate-related projects.
While the federal government has historically focused climate change research and climate adaptation on a handful of urban centers, like the city of Miami, other cities have shown the importance of broad-based collaborations and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality.
The research community has expanded its focus in recent years to include more communities around the country, but Los Angeles was selected as one of the top six climate destinations for an unprecedented partnership between the community, the Federal climate research program and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
This year’s list is not an all-inclusive list of projects or programs, but it provides a snapshot of their accomplishments.
The projects are being done by organizations that range from cities to non-profit groups to
