Snowed in at her North Buffalo home in late December, Kelley St. John agonized about city residents weathering the blizzard without enough heat or food.
St. John, then just days away from becoming Buffalo’s first climate action manager, knew such blizzards could grow more frequent as the climate changes.
The wreckage of that Christmas storm – which killed more than 40 people – foreshadowed the severity of the challenges the region might face.
While Buffalo isn't likely to see the coastal flooding or rampant wildfires feared elsewhere, current models predict the city will experience hotter weather, fiercer storms and greater precipitation.
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“I think a lot about the devastation that happened in the city in December,” St. John said in a recent interview from her office on the ninth floor of City Hall. “I can’t stop what the weather or climate are going to do. But I can help prepare the city and contribute to how we change and adjust.”
Now five weeks into her new role, St. John is coordinating several state-funded projects designed to lessen Buffalo’s carbon footprint and prepare residents and city government alike for the risks and dangers of climate change.
The 30-year-old urban planner, based in the city’s Strategic Planning Office, is well-suited to the challenge. She wears thrifted clothes, commutes by Metro when the weather allows, and peppers conversations with references to recent scientific papers. She has decorated her office with houseplants and a jumble of reusable mugs – the better to cut down on single-use plastics.
Local-level climate roles are now commonplace in city governments, even in midsize cities like Buffalo. Detroit appointed its first sustainability director in 2017, for instance, and similar offices have existed for years in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio. St. John's appointment, approved by the Common Council on Feb. 7, is perhaps the single most visible public signal that Mayor Byron Brown’s administration is serious about climate change.
“Having at least one full-time staff member dedicated to climate action indicates a city’s commitment,” said Lena Geraghty, the director of sustainability and innovation at the National League of Cities.
Compared to state or federal actions, local climate policy is a subtle art. There’s rarely talk of controversial, headline-grabbing regulatory changes, such as banning plastic grocery bags or phasing out gas hookups. Instead, municipal climate officials are often tasked with coordinating climate-mitigation projects across city departments or drafting plans to guide future priorities and legislation.
Such projects have existed in Buffalo for years, though they have sometimes proceeded more slowly than environmentalists would like. Since 2015, the city has adopted both a Green Code and an Energy Master Plan – planning documents that officials say are critical to making sure environmental concerns guide land use, energy and transportation decisions.
City agencies have also undertaken a slew of targeted sustainability and resilience initiatives, ranging from a successful campaign to increase residential recycling to the installation of efficient LED streetlights and porous pavement. If you have ever parked near an electric-vehicle charging space in a downtown parking ramp or seen a food waste drop-off bin at a city farmers market, you have already seen two of these initiatives in action.
In her new role, St. John will coordinate many of these mitigation activities, while also planning for an uncertain future. Formerly a senior grant manager focused on resiliency initiatives, St. John said her work now centers around identifying and addressing climate “vulnerabilities” – areas where a changing climate may disrupt city services, major industries or at-risk communities.
In late December, Buffalo received a $140,000 grant to begin researching those areas through the New York State Climate Smart Communities program. The city plans to begin gathering residents' input in the coming months, St. John said, potentially through public workshops, surveys and existing community group partnerships.
“There are metrics assigned" to many climate goals, she added. “But there's also an intangible element – understanding residents’ perceptions and preparedness and things like that.”
St. John understands, she added, that climate risks will fall heaviest on low-income residents and people of color – much as the December blizzard did. One significant challenge is the older age of the city’s housing stock, which leaves thousands of households without central air conditioning, efficient furnaces or adequate insulation.
She said she is also cognizant of concerns about future “climate migration,” which both the mayor and Invest Buffalo Niagara, the region’s foremost economic development group, have touted as a potential source of growth. But any eventual plans to make Buffalo a climate “refuge,” St. John said, must also shield existing residents from displacement.
Done right, she argues, local climate policy can both accelerate the city's recent economic progress and address long-standing issues of inequity and environmental racism.
“This position was the culmination of years of work and advocacy from many people in City Hall,” St. John said. “I really see it as an opportunity to hone in and do some of the hard, necessary work to set Buffalo up for the future.”
