The City of Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability (OOS) works with partners around the city to improve quality of life in all Philadelphia neighborhoods through addressing environmental justice, reducing the city’s carbon emissions, and preparing Philadelphia for a hotter and wetter future.
Within the Office of Sustainability there is an Office of Climate Resilience (OCR) that focuses on climate change adaptation and building resilience to climate impacts. The OCR leads the citywide climate resilience planning with team members focused specifically on climate services, flood resilience, heat resilience and place-based resilience efforts in partnership with community organizations.
It is difficult to overstate the impact that climate change will have on Philadelphia. Extreme events like floods and heat waves are already more frequent and intense due to global warming and will continue on that trajectory moving forward. As a city, it is essential that we prepare for the changes ahead and develop strategies to protect our most vulnerable populations, ensure that we continue providing critical municipal services, and thrive as an economic hub with smart development and land use practices.
To successfully adapt to climate change, the City of Philadelphia needs holistic city-wide strategies to build resilience and resources to pay for infrastructure upgrades, service delivery system changes, and community resilience projects and programs that protect residents, particularly frontline communities. Philadelphia needs a dedicated a dedicated funding source for climate resilience.
The goal of this project is to identify at climate resilience funding mechanism that is feasible and appropriate for Philadelphia. This would involve conducting a full review (literature review including gray literature, peer city review, interviews, etc.) of existing resilience funding models being employed nationally and internationally. After exploring funding mechanisms, a recommended approach for Philadelphia will be developed in close consultation with the Philadelphia Office of Sustainability (OOS) and external stakeholders and a roadmap for implementation would be developed that includes targeted communication materials for the new Mayoral administration and City Council.
Initial research of existing models for funding resilience identified the following models:
• Sales tax model (Denver Climate Protection Fund)
• Retail tax model (Portland Clean Energy and Community Benefit Fund)
• Fossil fuel tax model (France – SUV Levy)
• Electricity use tax model (Boulder Carbon Action Plan tax)
• Package delivery fee model (Barcelon package delivery tax, State of PA)
• Land Value Capture (Boston Climate Resiliency Fund)
• Resilience Districts (Seattle Duwamish Valley Resilience District)
• Flood Control Districts (Alameda County Flood Control and Water Conservation District)
• Stormwater Fees for flood mitigation
• Fee for regulatory non-compliance
These models, along with others identified by the capstone student, would be explored, compared and assessed for feasibility in Philadelphia. Criteria for implementation (e.g., OOS does not want a model that taxes residents and the fee would have to integrate into the City’s general fund) would be established by OOS and other stakeholders and a recommended approach would be identified with an implementation plan outlined.
A successful project will have three main deliverables:
1. A full assessment of existing or proposed funding models for climate resilience that includes the funding mechanism and models for dispersing/administering funds.
2. A recommended approach for implementation in Philadelphia that meets criteria established by OOS and other stakeholders (e.g., frontline communities). The recommended approach will include:
- An assessment of who is impacted by the fee (e.g., which sector)
- How much the fund would bring in annually and over time
- Short and long-term impacts
- Feasibility (e.g., barriers and ways to overcome them)
3. A road map for implementation that includes the steps necessary to set up, sustain, and administer the fund (e.g., who determines what the funds are used for, how are they dispersed?)
The timeline for this project is flexible. However, the time is ripe for establishing this fund; a new mayor and several new City Council members will take office in January 2024 and Philadelphians have recently had first-hand experience with the impacts of climate change (tropical storms Isaias and Ida and the heat waves in summer 2023). Most other large cities have established climate funds and OOS is confident that if given the choice, Philadelphians will agree (on a ballot measure) that climate change, climate justice, and equity are priorities that deserve financial investment. Ideally, this project would be completed within the first year of the new Mayor’s term, which aligns well with the current Fels Capstone project timeline.
