North Central Texas Council of Governments
At a Glance
Industry
Government/Public Administration
Project Types
Clean and Renewable Energy, Climate Justice/Energy Equity, Goals/Targets
Year
2021
Location
Arlington, TX
Summary
Lauren Johnson equitably strategized energy resiliency recommendations in the Dallas-Fort Worth region.
Goals
More and more local governments have accepted and emphasized the need to address global climate change through climate risk adaptation, mitigation, and resiliency in the public, private sector, and social sector. In response to this changing landscape in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, the North Central Texas Council of Governments tasked Lauren Johnson with developing the energy section of a regional Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emission Reduction Toolkit and strategy catalogue through an equitable approach to climate risk mitigation.
Solutions
Johnson met this challenge through a three-tiered approach:
- Survey the state and outcomes of energy related GHG emission reduction strategies produced over the last 20 years. After generating a master list of 350 energy-related strategies, Johnson condensed them to 30 actionable strategies.
- Quantify relative feasibility, cost, and equity of the 30 energy-related strategies through converting relevant case studies and background research into an easily accessible and resourceful toolkit to state and local governments, utilities, the private sector, and residents in North Central Texas.
- Evaluate overburdened environmental justice communities based upon social vulnerability and chronic health disparities near the location of pollution sources and target strategies to remediate them.
Potential Impact
If properly implemented, the energy-related strategies Johnson found could result in a reduction of hundreds of thousands of metric tons of CO2e in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. Johnson’s work serves as a universally applicable regional model to GHG emission reduction that will guide efforts in North Central Texas for years.
As a result of Johnson’s work to implement equity into the GHG Emission Reduction Toolkit, overburdened communities identified in the region will be targeted for programming that addresses the intersection of environmental justice and health disparities.