Portland Public Schools considers climate crisis response policy

The Portland Public Schools board will be voting soon on a comprehensive “Climate Crisis Response Policy” that has been more than a year in the making. It will call on the district to reduce its own emissions by 50% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040, prepare schools for the effects of climate change, create a climate curriculum to educate both students and staff on climate solutions and support student-led climate justice. It would also prohibit natural gas infrastructure in new buildings and phase out all natural gas in district buildings by 2050. The policy is currently in a public comment period, the last step before a board vote. We hear from Portland Public Schools board member Julia Brim-Edwards, who serves as chair of the policy committee.

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Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer:

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. The Portland Public School Board will be voting soon on a comprehensive Climate Crisis Response Policy. It’s been in the works for more than a year. If it passes, it would set a goal of a 50% greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2040. Other goals include preparing schools for the effects of climate change, creating a climate curriculum to educate both students and staff on climate solutions, and supporting student-led climate justice. The public comment period for this proposal ends on March first. That’s this coming Tuesday. A vote by the Board will follow. Julia Brim-Edwards is a member of the Board, she’s also the chair of the policy committee which put this proposal forward. Julia Brim-Edwards, welcome back to Think Out Loud.

Julia Brim-Edwards: Good morning ,Dave. Delighted to be here.

Dave Miller: It’s great to have you on. So, before we dig into the specifics of this proposal, can you just give us a sense for how this climate change response policy came to be?

Brim-Edwards:  Yes, it’s been almost two years in the making and it goes back to a group of students and teachers, school staff, community members who came together to really push the climate justice resolution that embedded climate in our curriculum and in our schools. Coming out of that, they asked how we could take further steps to combat the effects of climate, and I suggested creating a policy draft.  So, those same groups came together and proposed a policy and it’s been worked on in committee for the year. It’s involved really collaborative work from staff and also community members [and] clearly informed by our students demanding that the district take action.

Miller: So let’s turn to some of these specifics and what action will look like, starting with the greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the lead in terms of the policies listed here. How does the district plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 2018-2019 school year, as the base, and then reach net zero emissions 10 years later by the year 2040?

Brim-Edwards: That’s a great question, because it’s a big and bold goal that we have here, and it’s more aggressive even than local government jurisdictions. If you look at PPS, two of the biggest drivers of our greenhouse gas emissions are transportation and buildings. So, if you think about the fact that Portland Public Schools has more than 80 buildings across the city and that, every day, 50,000 students or so are going to and from school along with thousands of staff members, and this policy really focuses on in some aspects to hit those targets by reducing the emissions, both in the transportation sector and the building sector. One of the two big pieces of the building, the components relating to our buildings are that it will prohibit fossil fuel infrastructure in new buildings, of course. We’re going through a lot of modernizations right now of our schools. The second will phase out fossil fuels in our current buildings. And then on the transportation side, it also requires a  transition to electric or very low emission vehicles. And also looks at ways in which we can incentivize and create supports and tools for students and staff to not take single vehicle trips - in the morning, to be dropped off at school or be picked up at school - but rather walk, bike, take, take public transportation. So, those are the two big ways in which we will be looking at how to hit those targets and those goals.

Miller: I have a feeling that, going forward, the ‘not putting gas-fired equipment in new buildings’ is going to be getting a lot of attention. It’s not insignificant, but the fact is that there are more than 80 existing buildings in the District. So it seems that retrofits of various kinds have to be more important overall in terms of emissions reductions, just because those buildings, most of them are not going anywhere. It’s pretty rare for there to be a lot of new buildings going forward. So, what are you actually expecting in terms of the retrofits? How will existing buildings change in the coming decades?

Brim-Edwards: Well, this will be part of the initial work once the policy is adopted and is being implemented, that we’ll be doing scoping work and looking at the best way to to hit the targets. How do we do that and what, what’s the biggest payback or return in terms of carbon reductions for investments? Absolutely, we’ll look at our current building stock. We do have an aggressive plan to modernize all our buildings. We already have a plan to modernize all our high schools, and the middle schools and elementary schools will follow. So we’ll be working with our partners, PGE and also Pacific Power, that provide electrification for our new buildings, and how do we do that in a cost effective way in our current buildings?

Miller: One of the assumptions behind the district’s greenhouse gas emissions goals - it says this in a couple of places in the policy - is that voters will continue to approve bonds on a four year cycle. Are you expecting that any future asks are actually going to be focused specifically on emissions reductions?

Brim-Edwards: Well, I can’t speak for what future boards may refer to the ballot, but I can point to what we’ve done so far and I look at the recently opened Kellogg Middle School and outer Southeast. There’s all sorts of sustainability features built right into the school, and as we look at when we are either going to modernize schools or make upgrades or improve infrastructure, certainly we can build those in at the time and that actually is the highest, very cost effective way to make those improvements. So we’ve done it in the last two bonds, and I expect we will do it. Future boards will also incorporate that into the future bond packages as well. And we’ve seen broad community support for the district taking those steps.

Miller:  I want to turn to the education piece of this. One of the priorities is for students to learn about and engage in climate solutions, climate resiliency and climate justice practices. What’s an example, in your mind, of a local or regional or statewide climate justice practice that you would want to see students engaging in today?

Brim-Edwards: This is climate policy. [It] is a great example. Students were at the forefront of demanding that the district take action, that we lead by example. Not only do we have students who understand this system that they’re operating in and the impacts that Portland Public Schools have on the climate, but they’re actually taking action to push the adults and staff to make changes. It’s been a great example over the last year and a half of their engagement in this particular policy. We see in individual schools, also, students taking action about things that they can impact in their own school, whether it’s about reducing waste or moving to less disposable materials in their classrooms. We were looking to students to become, and they already are, but being the climate leaders and helping drive and push the district to make these changes.

Miller: Northwest Natural has been suggesting various changes to the draft policy. Broadly, they’ve wanted to soften the language about fully phasing out gas-fired equipment. Instead, they’re talking about installing renewable fuel appliances and other things like efficiency and offsets and green fuel tariffs. The obvious context here is they’re in the business of selling natural gas and you’re talking about not buying it in the near future. What’s been your response to their suggestions?

Brim-Edwards:  We’re in the midst of a public comment period, and we appreciate Northwest Natural and others who have commented on the policy. At the last policy committee meeting, we did consider the comments and suggestions that Northwest Natural provided, and the committee uniformly decided that we weren’t going to make changes because the suggestion was that renewable natural gas, which is methane captured from wastewater treatment plants, that is when you burn methane, it’s a greenhouse gas. So it actually would move us further away from our goal. So we made a decision that we were not going to weaken or soften the policy, and we’re looking at ways in which we can strengthen it and actually meet those goals. The sense was that the proposed amendments would not move us closer to our goal but rather move us further away.

Miller: What are the next steps for this climate crisis policy?

Brim-Edwards: We’re in the midst of the public comment period and appreciate the strong support we’ve already had from students and environmental groups. Generally, a school community will consider any additional comments that come in and review whether we want to make changes to the policy, and then it’ll be scheduled for a vote. That could be as early as the March 1st board meeting.

Miller: Based on your read of your fellow members of the board, do you think there are votes for this climate crisis policy?

Brim-Edwards: Well, I never speak for the other board members. I will say that the policy committee has four of the seven board members on it. The four board members have been very supportive of the current draft, which is really a collaborative draft between the staff [and] the committee. The board members on the committee and are sort of climate activists in the community. So I’m hopeful of a strong, united message that the board will send in support of this policy. But we’ll see when the actual vote happens. But I think this is a big, bold policy, and all indications are that we have a lot of support in the community to take strong action.

Miller: Julia Brim Edwards, thanks very much.

Brim-Edwards: Thank you, Dave.

Miller: Julia brim Edwards is a member of the Portland Public School Board.