Climate Action and Trees

Presentation to City of San Diego’s Environment Committee, March 14, 2019  Trees and Climate Action

Why focus on Climate Action and Trees?

  1. Trees are cost effective actions for carbon sequestration and climate adaptation and provide positive social benefits and ecosystem services.
  2. Local trees will be affected by climate change, as temperatures rise, droughts intensify, and wildfires increase.
  3. Many local climate action plans now need to be funded and implemented, and they can be a driver for tree maintenance, tree planting, tree inventory, and other urban forest management activities.

What can we do?

Promote tree canopy goals in local Climate Action Plans (CAPs).  Review Climate Action Plans Report Card 2017 and a score for trees in each city in San Diego County.  Links for CAPs in SD

Promote funding for tree protection, planting, and care to achieve-implement those goals.   If trees aren’t “at the table,” they’re forgotten, and the attention and resources go to all other aspects of climate action (and city services).

Use remote sensing data to identify tree planting opportunities in communities and assess differences by demographic characteristics. http://sdrufc.com/treecanopy

Apply local climate science to predict impacts on trees, notably mean anual temperatures, temperature extremes, precipitation variability, and droughts.  Explore amazing assessment on SD Ecosystems-Climate Change , a review of current, regionally specific climate and ecosystem literature, by 20 experts. Read  Assessment_36p

Develop and use consistent messages (for local publics and professionals) about the benefits of trees for climate adaptation and carbon sequestration.

Focus on tree benefits for reducing urban heat and health impacts of climate warming. UrbanGreeningHealth_7p_2016   FundingTreesForHealth   EPA_UrbanHeatIslands_Basics    EPA_UrbanHeatIslands_TreesVegetation    EPA_UrbanHeatIslands_Activities  Calif urban heat island 

Review studies on trees, health and climate adaptations,  Ann Arbor   Dallas     Phoenix    Nature Conservancy    

Encourage middle school teachers to use Climate change lessons featuring local climate impacts and adaptation. 

Promote actions that cities, corporations, communities, and citizens can take to increase tree canopy. (for example, ask corporations to fund tree watering-trucks instead of tree planting)

Connect with other local climate change advocates.     Climate Action Campaign  Campaign_UrbanTrees    Climate science Alliance   Stay Cool 4grandkids 

View presentation about City of Encinitas Climate Action Plan, Crystal Najera, October 3, 2018 Encinitas_CAP update and presentation about Trees and Climate Action, November 7, 2018 at Partners in Community Forestry conference, Irvine, CA, Trees and ClimateAction