Austin Climate Equity Plan

Let's work together to build a thriving, resilient, and equitable future for everyone! This year, we're updating our 5-year priorities to meet Austin's net-zero climate goals, and we need your input to identify the strategies that will reduce emissions and benefit our community.

Background

Austin's Community Climate Plan was first adopted in 2015 and helped set the direction for net-zero emissions in Austin by 2050. Five years later, we're updating the plan with the goal of addressing racial equity while reducing our community's greenhouse gas emissions.

As we embarked on this process, we recognized that a lot has changed since we created our first plan. We now know that climate change is happening faster than we thought and the landscape of potential solutions has changed in terms of cost and technology. We also know that climate solutions have the potential to improve everyone’s quality of life, but climate change impacts don’t affect everyone equally. This is why we chose to lead with racial equity and learn from the lived experience of people in our community to explore solutions to the climate crisis.

Our Process

As part of updating the Climate Plan, we convened six advisory groups to focus on specific topics related to energy, transportation, food, and access to nature. We also launched a Climate Ambassadors Program that gave us the opportunity to hear from people in our community who have been historically excluded from the climate conversation. All-in-all, this effort included over 130 people who met regularly over the course of six months. As these groups began to identify goals and strategies, we used this platform to get community feedback.

Getting involved

Our team will use this page to ask and answer questions, provide updates, and gather feedback and stories. We hope you'll engage with us here, or at any of our in-person or virtual meetings and workshops.