California Institute for Energy and Environment (CIEE)

Currently, less than 1% of Earth is too hot to support human life, but researchers estimate that by 2070 nearly 20% of the planet’s surface will be outside humanity’s comfort zone. The “bubble of unlivability” could include up to a third of the people on Earth, and existing inequalities will likely increase conflict. In the United States, vulnerable populations will be prone to disproportionate risk. On the Move, by journalist Abrahm Lustgarten, is a poignant and meticulously researched exploration of climate change and both its imminent and long-term effects on human migration in the US. Through analysis, personal narratives, and projected future scenarios, Lustgarten unveils the stark reality of a world on the brink of massive demographic shifts driven by an increasingly inhospitable climate. Lustgarten begins with a personal account of the moment he recognized the climate crisis as a reality that no region will escape. His usual view of the San Francisco skyline was replaced by “a sepia-toned, smoke-filled universe,” he writes. “Just twelve miles away as the crow flies, behind the ridge of parched and brittle redwoods I could see from my window, the Point Reyes National Seashore was burning. Tall gray towers of smoke billowed upward, raining down soot.” He then details how climate-driven migrations are not a future possibility but rather a current event, with historical precedents and emerging patterns that signal a profound shift in how and where people can live.

This commentary suggests that undertaking citizen science research with young people has the potential to play a significant role in contributing to the IPPC and related UN research and policy processes around climate change. Further, citizen science engagement can educate and empower children and young people in and through research by involving wider communities and groups in data collection, communication, and engagement. A persuasive body of literature suggests that children and youth can be and ought to be included in citizen science projects and that young people ought to and can have a greater say in their environmental and climate lives and futures. There is acknowledgment that certain populations, including young people, have been excluded from participation in citizen science, and strategies need to be developed to be more inclusive. Moreover, through inclusion of youth, there are opportunities for intergeneration collaboration leading to potential solutions. Our commentary is a call for the IPCC to be much more open and creative in its knowledge production work and to engage young people in climate-related citizen science.

How can cities efficiently and affordably undergo effective and dramatic decarbonization of buildings and vehicles? Can these strategies promote equity and scale across the urban environment worldwide? The EcoBlock in Oakland, California seeks to answer this urgent environmental, social, and technical question by designing, testing, and deploying community-scale energy and water systems. These innovative systems combine energy and water efficiency and electrification at the building scale with an electrical system that integrates rooftop solar, block-scale storage, electric vehicle (EV) charging, and a smart microgrid that optimizes supply and demand at the block-scale.

This paper presents the approach and strategies when moving from design to implementation deploying this novel prototype toward industrializing city-wide, residential microgrids that generate their own clean, renewable power for homes and EVs. Scaling retrofits requires coordination from evaluation, product selection, permitting and installation involving contractors, utilities, consultants and various Authorit(ies) Having Jurisdiction (AHJ). Improvements at homes interconnect with block scale microgrid and EV charging in an existing block and social dynamic. This paper will discuss opportunities and pitfalls to implementing block scale electrification and microgrid to achieve environmental benefits of emission savings and resiliency, utility cost benefits, social benefits of neighborhood network, and comfort and health benefits in each home.

This place‐based case study in an agricultural county in California’s Central Valley focused on the period of 2010–2050, and dealt with biophysical and socioeconomic issues related to both mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to adaptation to an uncertain climate. In the past 100 years, changes in crop acreage has been more related to crop price and availability of irrigation water than to growing degree days during summer, and in fact, summer temperatures have increased less than winter temperatures. Econometric analysis indicated that warmer winters, as projected by Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory‐Bias Corrected Constructed Analog during 2035–2050, could result in less wheat acreage, more alfalfa and tomato acreage, and slight effects on tree and vine crops. The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model showed that these econometric projections did not reduce irrigation demand under either the B1 or A2 scenarios, but a diverse, water‐efficient cropping pattern combined with improved irrigation technology reduced demand to 12 percent below the historic mean.   Collaboration during development of Yolo County’s Climate Action Plan showed that nitrous oxide (mainly from nitrogen fertilizers) was the main source (≅40 percent) of agricultural emissions. Emissions from cropland and rangeland were several orders of magnitude lower than urbanized land per unit area. A survey distributed to 570 farmers and ranchers achieved a 34 percent response rate. Farmers concerned about climate change were more likely to implement water conservation practices, and adopt voluntary GHG mitigation practices. Use of the urban growth model (UPlan) showed that channeling much or all future urban development into existing urban areas will increase ecosystem services by preserving agricultural land and open space, immensely reducing the Yolo County’s GHG emissions, and greatly enhancing agricultural sustainability

The San Francisco Bay Area contains a rich array of plant and animal biodiversity and an extensive open space network, embedded within a major metropolitan area. Terrestrial habitats in the San Francisco Bay Area support a wide range of ecosystem services, including carbon storage, forage production, enhanced water supply and quality, crop pollination, and outdoor recreation. The distribution of habitats and plant and animal species is strongly influenced by spatial variation in climate, and is thus expected to change in response to changes in regional and global climate. Current research suggests that most vegetation types will shift toward the coast, especially under scenarios with warmer and drier conditions; range contractions and reduced diversity are projected for California endemic plants in the Bay Area. Bird communities are projected to undergo significant reorganization, leading to altered interactions and community structure. Improved modeling at fine spatial scales represents an important priority to reduce uncertainty in these projections. Climate change is expected to strongly affect ecosystem services. Carbon storage in soils and vegetation could contribute to California’s carbon emissions reduction strategy, but current models project reduced carbon storage in trees due to climate change. Altered agricultural management strategies, including conversion to perennial crops, have the potential to increase soil carbon storage. Climate change impacts on vegetation, hydrology and habitat integrity may negatively affect fire regimes, forage production, water supplies, crop pollination services, and outdoor recreation and quality of life in the San Francisco Bay Area, but few specific projections are available. Strategic conservation planning in the Bay Area is under way to enhance biodiversity conservation through continued open space acquisition. Conservation of heterogeneous landscapes will provide resilience in the face of climate change. Improved understanding of projected climate change impacts on natural habitats will contribute to the development of regional adaptation strategies.

Cliff and bluff erosion, flooding of low‐lying areas, and damage to shoreline infrastructure and development will continue to affect California’s coastal communities in the decades ahead. Depending upon the rate of future sea‐level rise, changes in wave energy, and coastal storm intensity and frequency, these hazards will be likely become more severe, with increasing risks to coastal communities. This study assesses the vulnerability of the City of Santa Barbara to future sea‐level rise and related coastal hazards (by 2050 and 2100) based upon past events, shoreline topography, and exposure to sea‐level rise and wave attack. It also evaluates the likely impacts of coastal hazards to specific areas of the City, analyzes their risks and the City’s ability to respond, and recommends potential adaptation responses. By 2050, the risk of wave damage to shoreline development and infrastructure in Santa Barbara will be high. Options are limited and adaptive capacity will be moderate, with retreat being the most viable long‐ term option. By 2100, the risk will become very high. By 2050, flooding and inundation of low‐ lying coastal areas will present a moderate risk to the City by 2050, which will have a moderate capacity for adaptation. If the high sea levels projected by the State occur, this risk will become very high, and adaptive capacity will become low by 2100. Cliff erosion has been taking place for decades, and as this process continues or increases, additional public and private property in the Mesa area will be threatened. The risk of increased cliff erosion will be moderate by 2050 and very high by 2100. Because armoring is ineffective here and retreat necessitates the relocation of structures, adaptive capacity will be low. Inundation of beaches presents a low threat to the City by 2050 but a high threat by 2100. The City faces a dilemma: protect oceanfront development and infrastructure or remove barriers and let beaches migrate inland. By 2100 structures will have to be moved if beaches are to be maintained.

Small mammals have shifted their elevation ranges in the Sierra Nevada. We questioned whether this shift can be linked to changes in habitat distribution, whether changes in population abundance match range dynamics, and how the shift affects predictions of future small mammal distribution. We merged data from mammal records of the Grinnell Resurvey Project, vegetation from the Wieslander Vegetation Type Maps and CALVEG and National Park Service, and downscaled PRISM climate data to meet these objectives.   We found that species that expanded their elevational distribution range tracked suitable habitats, and their ecological niche broadened over time. Species whose elevation range has contracted did not track suitable habitats, and their ecological niche remained constant.   Species that tracked their habitat dynamics showed an average decrease in abundance at the leading edge of their distribution range, whereas species that did not track their habitat dynamics showed either no change or increase in abundance at the lagging edge of their distribution range over time.   Life zone (vegetation types across elevation bands as a response to gradients in temperature and precipitation) and climate models performed better than vegetation models when changes over 80 years were analyzed, suggesting that species are responding more rapidly to climate than to vegetation change. Nonetheless, in all of these models, expanding species were harder to model as their ecological niche shifted, whereas contracting species produced more reliable models.   These results imply that modeling future distributions of sensitive species will vary according to the direction and magnitude of their sensitivity to both climate and vegetation changes.   The results of this analysis highlight the need to determine these species life history traits, habitat preferences and temporal dynamics, in order to identify which species are positively and negatively sensitive, and which are relatively insensitive to future climate and land cover change.