Katie Cashman: A resilient City of Lakes requires bold climate leadership

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This summer, Minneapolis experienced some of the worst air quality in our recorded history. For seven days in August, wildfire smoke blanketed our city, reminding us just how vulnerable we are to the effects of climate change. And it’s not just asthma and respiratory illness on the rise — our ability to enjoy outdoor life is disappearing. Sports were canceled. Parks emptied. Outdoor festivals paused. Even in winter, warming temperatures threaten beloved traditions like ice skating on our lakes.

Minneapolitans felt the loss of connection to nature in a city that prides itself on livability and outdoor beauty. And yet, even as we face these challenges, our city is increasingly becoming a climate refuge. Every year, people from states like California, Texas and North Carolina are moving here to escape wildfires, extreme heat, hurricanes, floods and an affordability crisis that’s spinning out of control elsewhere.

Here in Minneapolis, we believe in science and in sustainability for the long haul. At a time when federal leadership has abdicated all responsibility on climate and put its face in the sand to ignore reality, cities like ours must lead. We must double down on our commitment to climate resilience and green energy — not because it’s trendy, but because it’s about protecting our ability to live, work and play in this city for generations to come.

As a city, we’ve made meaningful progress. In 2023, we secured dedicated Climate Action Funding, and over the last two years, we’ve launched weatherization and retrofitting programs to prepare our residential and commercial buildings for more extreme weather events and temperatures, reducing energy bills and costs in the process. But we’re still not meeting the scale of the crisis. This year, only 500 homes have been upgraded — far below the 5,000 to 10,000 households we need to reach annually if we’re serious about hitting our health, climate and equity goals. And just last month, the Green Cost Share fund (the pool of money that pays for these programs) ran dry, months ahead of schedule.

We must scale up, and we must be creative in how we do it. That includes expanding our franchise fee revenue. Due to new contract language that I won in my negotiations with Xcel and Centerpoint last year, we can now expand who pays into the utility franchise fees. Now, we are able to tailor fees to be sure large industrial polluters in our city are paying their fair due — which is exactly what City Council Member Emily Koski, Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai and I are proposing in a new ordinance we introduced this fall. The resulting 0.5% increase in rates would bring in millions of dollars from the utilities to scale up our climate work.

Let’s also borrow the best ideas from elsewhere. In states as politically diverse as California, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Arkansas, utilities have adopted “Pay As You Save” (PAYS) models where utilities cover the upfront costs of energy efficiency upgrades, and residents repay them through small monthly charges on their utility bills — charges that are less than the energy savings. It’s a no-debt, no-barriers approach that makes climate action accessible to renters and low-income households alike.

Look at cities like Ann Arbor, Mich., which is developing its own city energy utility to fund the installation of solar panels on schools and the buildout of district geothermal energy systems.

Minneapolis can — and should — adopt a similar model of innovation. Xcel and CenterPoint must step up and offer inclusive energy upgrades to all residents, and we at the city need to be ready to use our newly negotiated leverage to hold them to their commitments.

Our programs to upgrade buildings are just a piece of the climate solutions pie. Transitioning to more balanced transportation infrastructure, reducing exposed pavement, limiting waste and growing the urban tree canopy will also be needed to ultimately get Minneapolis into a sustainable position. But the city’s clean energy programs are solid and necessary to improve our quality of life, save residents money amid wildly fluctuating energy costs and set an example for cities across the country. This is how we turn values into results. Join me in building our clean energy future, block by block.

Katie Cashman (www.katieforcouncil.org) is a member of the Minneapolis City Council representing Ward 7, and is seeking re-election.