Houston mayor touts city's climate action plan following major flooding disasters

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner this week described advancement the metropolis is making toward curbing planet-warming emissions and gathering tempest resilient infrastructure arsenic portion of its climate enactment plan, which the Texas metropolis launched 2 years agone aft grappling with six large flooding disasters successful conscionable 5 years.

Turner, during an interrogation with CNBC Correspondent Contessa Brewer, said the country's fourth-largest metropolis is moving to pb the cleanable vigor modulation with technologies, including cleanable hydrogen and c capture, utilization, and storage.

Houston is 1 of the largest concern bases successful the satellite and is liable for astir 10% of greenhouse state emissions successful the U.S. and 3% of planetary emissions. It's besides location to 40% of each publically traded lipid and state companies and is the lone large U.S. metropolis that doesn't person land-use zoning laws, which means that thing tin beryllium built anywhere.

The city's clime plan, however, sets a extremity to slash emissions by 40% by 2030 and go c neutral by mid-century. The politician said the metropolis is present gathering higher than the floodplain elevation, promoting greenish stormwater infrastructure, weatherizing homes, and planting 4.6 cardinal trees by the extremity of the decade.

"We are gathering forward, not needfully gathering back," Turner said during the interrogation released connected Thursday.

"It's critically important that this metropolis leads an vigor transition, that we electrify our nationalist and backstage fleet, that we works the indispensable trees, we bash the vigor mapping — each of those things that volition beryllium indispensable to enactment america successful the champion spot going forward," Turner said.

Due to its proximity to the Gulf Coast, Houston is peculiarly susceptible to storms and hurricanes, which are increasing much predominant and aggravated arsenic the clime changes.

Hurricane Harvey, which flooded a swath of coastal Texas from Harris County to the Louisiana borderline successful 2017, came aft 2 different 500-year flood events successful Houston. And Harris County, which includes Houston, has experienced 7 federally declared disasters during the past decade.

Turner said the destruction from Harvey was a turning constituent for the metropolis with respect to efforts to mitigate clime change, and since past the metropolis has worked to trim discarded and vigor usage and beforehand safer and much resilient development.

Houston has besides received buy-in from the section vigor assemblage connected immoderate of its clime initiatives, the politician said, moving with companies specified arsenic Exxon Mobil. For instance, the metropolis is gathering 52 megawatts of utility-scale star connected a section 240-acre erstwhile landfill tract that's acceptable to go the largest municipality star workplace successful the country, Turner said.

"We person immoderate of the largest greenhouse state emitters close present successful the metropolis of Houston," Turner said. "And that's wherefore I saw it precise important to enactment successful collaboration with them."