Climate Change Adaptation

Goal: Build Resiliency as We Adapt to Climate Change to Ensure a Healthy Economic Ecosystem

Summary

The North Bay has experienced more wildfires, floods, drought, and extreme heat events in the past decade than ever before. The North Bay’s economy, jobs, and climate changes are inexorably linked. We seek better public policies that address the inequities of the impacts of climate change. It is fundamental that we find solutions to droughts, natural disasters, sea level rise, wildfires, and adverse effects on our local economy so that we can gain the economic competitiveness we need in our region. NBLC will make climate change adaptation the umbrella over public policy work, assessing the need for critical infrastructure improvements and future growth in the North Bay.

Our Priorities

  • Policies that ensure adequate and reliable water supply to support the economy.

  • Efforts to prevent more disasters, such as undergrounding power lines, controlled burns, and reduction in fuel in high-fire areas.

  • Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, and other ways to fight global warming.

  • A strategic plan to make the power grid sustainable and hardened to disasters.

  • New measures that, when coupled with appropriate funding and incentives, help further prioritize conservation statewide.

  • Programs that encourage the adoption of proven water technologies and practices that drive long-term and measurable behavior changes and help the state get more from less water.

  • Increasing water storage, both above and below ground, through desalination and other means.

  • Use both natural and built infrastructure to improve regional defenses against extreme weather events; increase state funding for wetland restoration and flood control projects to provide a state match for local projects.

  • Finding a more reliable financing mechanism and investments in the water infrastructure.

  • The exploration of opportunities to embrace clean/green tech to gain a competitive advantage, reduce emissions, and show leadership.