Flagstaff adapts to climate change through Carbon Neutrality Plan

Taylor McCormick May 8, 2024

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- The city’s sustainability sector is working hard to provide solutions to combat the shifting effects of climate change in Flagstaff. The Carbon Neutrality Plan (the Plan) is the city’s version of a climate action plan intended to provide a high quality of life for residents. Concerns over how effective the Plan is stem from oversights on certain issues, according to residents. 

The Plan focuses on achieving three goals to mitigate and adapt to climate changes and equity in prioritizing those most likely to be affected. On a local level, mitigation of the effects of climate change looks like a workload split into four priorities: commitments, consumption, energy and neighborhoods, with 15 target areas such as decreased car dependency, clean electricity, water security and carbon dioxide removal. 

Figure 1: Wedge graphic of carbon neutrality. This graph shows the emissions reductions and carbon dioxide removal required to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030.  

The City of Flagstaff (CoF) sheds light on the current consumption and emissions in the city, urging for a 44% decrease by 2030. By 2050, residents can expect 40 days above 90 degrees per year if the Plan does not put a dent in current emissions. 

Substantial amounts of vegetation surround Flagstaff within the largest Ponderosa Pine Forest in the world. In June 2020, Flagstaff City Council declared a climate emergency and merged the 2018 Climate Action Plan with the Carbon Neutrality Plan in December 2022. 

Jenny Niemann, the section director for Flagstaff Climate Action, shares in the Sept. 26, 2023 City Council meeting ways for the Plan to become more digestible for citizens. 

"The Carbon Neutrality Plan is a really complex document," Niemann said. “We’re working little by little to get better at explaining how it can best work.” 

Through explanation, discussion and direct involvement with Flagites, trust between them and the city will lead to careful consideration of the public’s needs in relation to the city’s demands.  

“Climate action and especially carbon neutrality are new for us,” Niemann said. “They’re new for a lot of folks in the community. We thought it was really, really important to explain clearly how we would act right as we get into a lot of this new work.” 

For residents to level with the CoF's goals, understanding the Plan is a learning experience for all involved is crucial. The Flagstaff Sustainability Office’s (FSO) transparency on the direction of the Plan through its re-evaluation of current climate information provides accountability and encourages public input. 

Figure 2: The exterior of the Flagstaff Sustainability Office (FSO), May 3. The FSO handles programs that involve climate action, community stewards, food, energy and waste. (Photo by Taylor McCormick) 

The FSO’s Regional Plan Amendment for Carbon Neutrality changes the Plan to specify goals and policies such as a time frame on reaching carbon neutrality and creating a connected community that strengthens climate resiliency.  

The Plan initially began as the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan in November 2018 to bring community awareness to increasing global climate temperatures, with plans to mitigate and adapt to its effects. Flagstaff feels these changes in water availability, increased snowpack and wildfire risks, leading to a decrease in infrastructure, natural resources, the economy and quality of life.  

With Flagstaff in the middle of the Ponderosa Pine forest, the wildfire risk is extraordinarily high, requiring increased prescribed burns to counteract the fires. A recent case is the Wolf Wildfire, ignited by a lighting strike on April 29, but quickly transitioned into an ongoing prescribed burn overseen by the Type-3 incident management team. 

The FSO founded the first Plan to counteract incidents like Wolf through public open houses, online surveys, meetings with organizations and representatives and a citizen committee to aid in the planning process. Despite its foundation and over $6 million cost, the Plan was not presented to voters for approval since the climate emergency was declared during the pandemic. 

NAU Sustainable Communities degree program professor Brian Petersen worked on the Climate Action Plan when he served as the former three-year Flagstaff Climate Committee chair. He speaks on his time there and where the city must handle climate change effectively locally. 

"We really tried to link climate change beyond just a standalone issue but really integrated into the thinking of how a city operates,” Petersen said. “Thinking about climate change differently as not just molecules in space but [as] an outcome of how we organize our society and how we’re affected in that way as well.” 

Flagstaff plans to extend Lone Tree by building a costly bridge as part of the transportation tax. The bridge would prioritize car accessibility of single occupancy vehicles, limit bike and pedestrian infrastructure, proving to be a carbon intensive approach. 

"We could spend more money on getting people out of their cars, or more importantly, providing alternatives to single occupancy vehicles, but we’re not doing that,” Petersen said. “Extending and creating a new tax is going to go against what you want in a climate action plan.” 

By building roads and bridges that encourage more carbon-intensive driving and paying for it using a transportation tax, Petersen calls into question intention versus impact. 

“When you build more road capacity, it just increases driving. It’s called induced demand,” Petersen said. “New road is going to open up a huge area of land for development so thousands of homes are going to be built. This is going to dramatically increase the number of trips people take and the vehicle miles traveled.” 

In line with the FSO's view, he recognizes that Flagstaff’s biggest carbon contributor is transportation, though their plans to combat the issue differ. Petersen believes housing density is one way to encourage biking, walking and public transportation, such as the bus system. 

Flagstaff’s major bus service, Mountain Line, is scheduled to receive upgrades to accessibility by the middle of this year due to a $12.4 million federal grant. Additional bus bays are expected to be implemented, addressing Petersen’s concerns about money not being distributed toward making it easier to use public transit. 

Flagstaff Sustainability resilience analyst Genevieve Pearthree discusses policy development regarding transportation and infrastructure in the Plan at the Flagstaff City Council meeting. 

“The three areas that I’m highlighting tonight are transportation, zoning and building codes, as well as resilience and equity,” Pearthree said. “The goal here is to match city policies and codes to the stated goals of the Carbon Neutrality Plan.” 

Pearthree said the Active Transportation Master Plan set to prop up increased walking and bicycle use by recommending strategies and programs to provide a safer environment for pedestrians. This plan builds off Flagstaff Regional Plan 2030, which is a general idea for the future of the Flagstaff community. 

During the public comments portion of the meeting, Northern Arizona Climate Change Alliance volunteer Jill Stephenson reiterated Petersen’s urgency toward more emission-friendly modes of transportation.  

“The more people using pedal and foot powered and electric powered alternatives, the less greenhouse gases emitted into the air that we breathe,” Stephenson said.  

The FSO evaluates the priority system by analyzing the biggest contributors to carbon intensity. Replacing energy sources with solar and encouraging the use of electric vehicles is an important aspect of the process. With the Plan’s focus on reducing carbon emissions, residents raise concerns about the city’s approach to infrastructure and transportation.  

Hundreds of U.S. cities are taking part in the development of climate action plans and Flagstaff can make a noticeable impact with its unique geography and proactive community. While the city has won awards for its efforts, going beyond expectations in implementing climate action policies would solidify dedication to reducing emissions. 

“We won an award for bus system to the bus system carriers, something like 3% of all trips are by bus. That's an award-winning system,” Petersen said. “I think we can be a model, but at the same time, for me, we should be a model in different ways.”  

Flagstaff is working toward being a green city, but the FSO will have to take more drastic actions to show that for advocacy groups like Flagstaff First. They believe the Plan has its sights set on the wrong issues, encouraging a re-focus from emissions to wildfire and flood prevention, both natural disasters that are a consistent threat to the region. 

In response, organizations such as Friends of Flagstaff’s Future and the Northern Arizona Climate Change Alliance, along with Flagstaff Mayor Becky Daggett, believe the Plan adequately addresses ways to mitigate and adapt to these natural disasters though its focus is on carbon neutrality.  

However, plans toward mitigating the effects of climate change will attempt to be stifled by Senator Kern’s sponsored introduction of Senate Bill (SB) 1195. The bill would prevent public entities from using public funds to adopt a climate action plan. The bill states:

“A public entity may not spend public monies to promote, advocate or plan for, or become a member of an association or organization that promotes, advocates or plans for... limiting the increase of the average global temperature or producing or adopting a climate action plan.” 

SB 1195 barely makes the mark in approval by the Senate and House of Representatives, giving it a “do pass” by both. Education and awareness surrounding climate change and harm reduction are still a priority. 

Fossil Free NAU’s attempt at getting the university to divest from fossil fuels has been denied by the NAU Foundation Board. While the denial is specific to the university, decisions like it and SB 1195 made by faculty and government officials are counterintuitive to the time, money and action taken to improve climate change at a local level. 

Petersen suggests the city should individualize the Plan by rebranding it to citizens as a well-being plan to garner support. This approach would incorporate methods used in Flagstaff’s current plan to achieve carbon neutrality, but make it more appealing to the average resident.

“And in that, [we should] do interventions that actually reduce emissions that would be way more effective in my view,” Petersen said. “It'd be way harder for people to be opposed to.”

The Plan is a step in the right direction for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Flagstaff, despite attempts to postpone and stop it before it becomes effective. Attention toward preventative measures for flooding and wildfires should not be neglected, but the outlined priority is decreasing carbon-heavy vehicle use.  

As more information becomes available about how to mitigate climate change’s effects, the city’s sustainability sector will continue to work with regional and tribal partners to adjust the Plan effectively with help from the Flagstaff community and intersectional projects.