Tuesday, September 22, 2026, 10:45 a.m. (Denver time), Parr-Widener Community Room, Room 389
0:40 Morning again, everyone. We're
0:43 back to during 2 of the day on
0:45 day 2. And we're really
0:46 excited for this presentation
0:51 from the climate action
0:52 sustainability and resiliency
0:56 We can do do intros after.
0:57 Let's go ahead and get started
0:57 with the You can introduce
0:59 yourself and your team. We
1:00 don't just go around the table
1:02 after its PRESIDENT. Thank
1:06 you. Good morning. I'm Liz
1:07 Babcock, the executive
1:08 director of Denver's Office of
1:10 Climate Action Sustainability
1:11 and Resiliency. Happy to be
1:14 here with you this morning.
1:15 And would love for my team to
1:16 go ahead and quickly introduce
1:21 themselves as well. The deputy
1:22 executive director in the
1:22 climate office over the
1:26 Climate Action Division.
1:28 Jonathan Wachtell, also deputy
1:29 executive director over that
1:29 climate adaptation and
1:33 sustainability resiliency I'm
1:33 really getting and director
1:35 communications and strategic
1:37 initiatives, Tim's Direc
1:37 director of finance and
1:43 administration here. The table
1:44 comes. Going to good morning
1:46 out there watching find
1:47 district 9, you know, so many
1:49 them and send them into a scam
1:51 district Good morning, about
1:57 Campbell Southeast Denver
1:58 district 4 down the keen go
2:01 chief financial to But it
2:02 district 7.10 Emily Garnet
2:04 chief operating officer,
2:06 thanks. Difference. Perfect as
2:15 councilmember at large, Kevin
2:17 Flynn south going to just 200
2:22 drop rate from finance. Just
2:23 insights. COUNCILWOMAN To
2:23 clear and go ahead and take
2:26 it. Thank you so much. So our
2:30 agency was created in 2020. To
2:31 address climate change and
2:33 build a more sustainable and
2:34 resilient Denver. Our vision
2:35 is that together we build a
2:37 carbon pollution-free
2:38 sustainable and resilient
2:39 climate, resilient Denver, for
2:42 all. And our mission is in
2:43 Denver. We believe that the
2:45 climate crisis is solvable and
2:46 together we are the ones to
2:49 solve it. We manage it are
2:50 bold climate action goals for
2:51 the city. We promote policies
2:54 and programs that reduce gas
2:54 emissions and build resilience
2:57 to climate change impacts
2:59 cancer is dedicated to equity.
3:00 Prioritizing the needs of
3:01 Denver's most climate,
3:01 vulnerable communities. And
3:06 you can see our plans. Our
3:06 annual reports, community
3:07 initiatives and other
3:09 information on our Web site at
3:11 Denver. Gov Dot Org Slash
3:12 sustainability. And I do want
3:13 to point out we produce an
3:14 annual report each year comes
3:16 out in JUNE and it does have
3:18 all all of the detailed
3:19 information about all of our
3:20 activities each year,
3:21 including in the appendix,
3:24 very detailed financial
3:26 the expenditures in the
3:26 information, including all of
3:28 Climate Protection Fund. How
3:30 we spend those dollars, what
3:30 contracts we have, what
3:31 programs are going to. So if
3:33 you want a lot more detail on
3:34 everything that we've done
3:35 annually, you can find those
3:40 and annual reports. So our
3:41 strategic priorities for
3:43 Twenty-twenty 7 are similar to
3:45 years past. First to cut
3:47 carbon pollution through
3:47 policy programs and projects
3:51 in energy efficiency. Electric
3:52 Haitian of buildings and
3:53 transportation and clean
3:54 mobility options like public
3:57 transit, biking and walking.
3:59 We also want to help our
4:00 community adapt to climate
4:02 change by planting trees and
4:02 creating green spaces to
4:06 reduce urban heat islands.
4:07 Implement nature based
4:07 solutions and sustainable
4:09 land. Use policy, identify and
4:11 plan for climate
4:12 vulnerabilities and create
4:13 programs to meet the needs of
4:14 people and communities most
4:17 affected by climate change
4:18 impacts our 0 waste and
4:19 circular economy work is
4:20 focused on recycling and
4:22 composting to reduce landfill
4:23 waste through the
4:24 implementation of the
4:26 universal recycling and
4:27 composting ordinance. We
4:28 implement policies and
4:29 programs to reduce single-use
4:32 items and promote sustainable
4:33 packaging and tracking and
4:34 reporting on material use and
4:37 consumption based emissions.
4:38 Our equity and climate justice
4:40 work is really focused on a
4:41 number of key areas, including
4:45 climate, resilient food
4:45 systems, advance in clean
4:46 energy and natural resource.
4:47 Workforce development in
4:51 partnership with Tito ensuring
4:52 program accessibility
4:53 developing tailored programs
4:54 to lower carb or carbon
4:55 pollution and energy bills for
4:57 climate vulnerable households
4:58 and neighborhoods. And
4:59 finally, our communications
5:03 and strategic initiatives work
5:03 focuses on increasing
5:04 language, access, leading
5:06 behavior, change campaigns
5:08 developing strategic
5:09 engagement efforts for
5:10 priority projects in our
5:11 neighborhoods, such as full
5:13 electrification of the
5:14 neighborhood and supporting
5:15 community climate change
5:20 ambassadors. So our budget
5:23 philosophy for 2027 has 3 core
5:24 elements. The first is to
5:25 maintain our court programs
5:27 and services. We want to
5:29 create those programs and
5:29 maintain them that support
5:31 residents, small businesses
5:32 and nonprofits and increased
5:34 accessibility of those
5:36 programs. We want to provide
5:37 funding and technical support
5:38 to help with policy
5:40 implementation. We have a
5:42 number of high profile high
5:42 impact policies. We want to
5:43 help the community be
5:47 successful in complying with
5:47 those policies. Second, we
5:49 want to increase the scale and
5:51 urgency of our work. We want
5:53 to invest in the highest
5:54 impacts solutions and scale
5:55 them and we want to increase
5:56 the efficiency of our
5:57 operations and the speed of
5:59 implementation. And finally,
6:00 we're working to ensure co
6:03 benefits and equity. So we
6:05 want to make sure our carbon
6:07 reduction programs include
6:08 resilience, cost savings and
6:11 other Equity Co benefits. And
6:12 finally, we're partnering with
6:15 other agencies like Tito to
6:16 increase career opportunities
6:17 for priority populations. That
6:19 includes justice involved
6:21 individuals, opportunity, use
6:24 individuals from our nest
6:25 neighborhoods and ensuring
6:26 that people who have
6:26 experienced barriers to these
6:29 careers can access them.
6:34 Equity is integrated as a core
6:35 value throughout all of our
6:37 work. Our Jedi committee is
6:39 very active and is developing
6:40 an equity criteria framework
6:41 that will further and that
6:42 equity throughout the
6:45 organization. We build equity
6:47 into our work through
6:48 programs, project and policy
6:51 design and delivery. That
6:51 includes looking at key
6:52 indicators relevant to the
6:55 outcomes were seeking. For
6:55 example, many of our programs
6:57 have higher support for
6:58 income-qualified households
6:59 when addressing climate risk.
7:01 We look at factors such as
7:03 race age, health conditions
7:04 and more. We use this
7:05 information to target our
7:07 programs, policies and
7:08 projects. So the example I
7:10 want to talk with you about
7:11 and I'll show the the map on
7:14 the next slide is the update
7:15 to our Heat vulnerability
7:17 index. We're out, worked with
7:19 and car and received a grant
7:20 from nasa to look at Denver's
7:22 key climate impacts, which is
7:24 includes extreme heat and air
7:27 quality. And they are working
7:29 to update our map to be a heat
7:33 risk index of the city. And so
7:34 what we look at there is a
7:34 number of different factors
7:36 and I'll show you that on the
7:38 next slide. But we know
7:39 historically that redlining
7:40 and other inequities have
7:41 played a role in making
7:43 certain areas of the city
7:45 hotter. Other factors that we
7:47 know play a role include
7:48 individual or household
7:48 adaptive capacity. So that
7:50 would be social or economic
7:52 resources. Health conditions,
7:53 age and access to cooling at
7:58 home. So this is hot off the
7:59 presses. It is a draft still.
8:01 So this is not final. But what
8:03 it is showing you here is
8:04 which neighborhoods in the
8:08 city have the highest he risk.
8:09 So the dark red areas are the
8:10 highest risk and the lighter
8:12 areas are the lower risk and
8:15 includes 3 different
8:16 categories of factors. So one
8:19 is exposure. The other is
8:22 hazards and finally
8:22 vulnerability. So exposure is
8:23 just the total population.
8:24 It's a population density
8:27 distributed across the city.
8:28 Hazards include the average
8:29 daily minimum temperature
8:30 during JUNE JULY and AUGUST
8:33 from 2014 to 2023, the percent
8:34 tree canopy the percent green
8:36 space and the percent
8:38 impervious surface. And then
8:39 the vulnerability is the
8:39 percentage of individuals that
8:41 are 65 years or older
8:42 prevalence of fair or poor
8:47 health. Median neighborhood
8:47 income percent of household
8:48 with no English speaking
8:49 ability percent population
8:51 over. 25 without a high school
8:52 diploma and percent of
8:54 residential properties without
8:56 cooling. So those factors
8:57 combined and weighted in the
9:00 index show us which areas of
9:01 the city, which households in
9:03 the city are more vulnerable
9:03 to extreme heat and then we
9:04 can use that data that
9:06 information to inform where we
9:09 make investments policies
9:10 projects. This tool is not
9:11 just for cars or we hope that
9:12 this will be a tool that the
9:13 entire city can use. We do
9:15 intend that once this is
9:17 finalized to do a training and
9:18 offer this up to other
9:19 agencies and they can look at
9:19 specific factors within the
9:23 tool to understand, you know,
9:24 if they're trying to change
9:24 impervious surface or tree
9:26 canopy, where can they look
9:28 and how can they target
9:29 different parts of the city to
9:30 increase equity and to close
9:33 that heap gap? I'm going to
9:34 show you on the next slide.
9:35 How we've already been doing
9:37 this type of work in our
9:38 investment. So we do have a
9:39 heat vulnerability map that is
9:40 similar to this that we've
9:42 been using. It's hasn't been
9:43 updated in quite a while. So
9:44 to be great to have this new
9:45 data. But that map has help
9:47 inform a lot of ongoing
9:51 investment. So this example is
9:52 our tree-planting efforts of
9:52 this is not just Kaiser's
9:54 data. This also includes parks
9:57 as well as daddy. But you can
10:01 see here the blue sub layer is
10:03 at the equity index across the
10:06 city and the yellow outlying
10:06 neighborhoods are where the
10:08 majority of the investments
10:09 we've made and tree planting
10:09 across the city. And you can
10:10 see the number of trees in
10:11 neighborhoods listed on the
10:13 right. But North Denver and
10:15 West Amber, obviously on this
10:16 map, some of the areas with
10:19 the highest heat risk. And
10:20 then you can see that we've
10:22 made those investments in
10:23 those same areas through our
10:29 programs. Moving on to our
10:31 agency structure. We have 4
10:32 divisions, climate action
10:34 which focuses on cutting
10:35 carbon pollution through
10:35 electric Haitian energy
10:39 efficiency. Sustainability and
10:40 resiliency, which focuses on
10:41 helping us adapt to climate
10:42 change, impacts and build
10:43 resilience across the
10:44 community as well as or is
10:46 your waist and circular
10:48 economy work reduce landfill,
10:50 waste and and decrease the use
10:52 of single use plastics and
10:54 single-use items as well as
10:55 green workforce. In
10:57 partnership with Tito, our
10:58 communications and strategic
11:01 initiatives. Vision focuses on
11:03 marketing community, outreach
11:03 all of our communications
11:05 and engagement, language
11:07 access and are premature U.S.
11:09 Program, which works with
11:11 community raise awareness and
11:12 and build capacity in
11:15 communities for this work and
11:17 then finally or finance and
11:18 administration division does
11:19 all of our accounting
11:21 budgeting as well as
11:22 administrative functions
11:23 around contracting contract,
11:27 monitoring, etc. So moving to
11:28 our performance metrics, one
11:29 of our key metrics U.S.
11:31 Greenhouse gas emissions over
11:33 time. You can see from 2015 to
11:34 2025. In this is protected.
11:35 These numbers should be final
11:40 soon. Very soon for 25, we
11:40 have a 36% reduction in
11:45 emissions over time. So the
11:45 bottom bar, they're the purple
11:46 is our transportation
11:48 emissions. And you can see we
11:50 have had a decrease from 2.4
11:51 million metric tons of Co 2
11:55 equivalent to 1.9 million. And
11:56 then you will see here the bar
12:00 up from the bottom, the darker
12:02 purple is our natural gas that
12:03 we use in our buildings, the
12:04 methane gas that's used to
12:07 heat our buildings to heat
12:08 water. And you can see there
12:09 hasn't been much change there.
12:10 It's relatively flat now
12:11 that's including growth in the
12:12 city. We've obviously had a
12:14 lot growth over that period of
12:14 time. But we really need to in
12:15 order to achieve our goals,
12:18 shift away from using fossil
12:20 gas to heat our buildings and
12:22 heat water and using air
12:23 source heat pumps crowdsource,
12:25 he pumps district energy,
12:27 thermal energy capturing waste
12:29 heat and using that for
12:31 heating. So that's a really
12:32 critical piece of getting to
12:35 our climate goals over time.
12:35 The real star of the story
12:38 here is electricity emissions.
12:39 They have decreased by more
12:42 than 50% since 2015, primarily
12:44 requirements excel has to
12:44 driven by state policy and the
12:47 decarbonize the grid and then
12:48 finally that little blue Bar
12:49 is the waste emissions. This
12:50 is just the annual emissions
12:53 of methane from the landfill
12:55 landfill annually. We know
12:55 by what's put into the and the
12:56 that waste is a significant
12:59 contributor to nothing and we
13:01 are looking at other ways to
13:03 measure this outside of this
13:05 approach that just looks at
13:05 the annual emissions from
13:10 landfill. This next slide is a
13:13 really interesting story. So
13:14 in order to obviously achieve
13:15 the goals I was talking about
13:16 in the previous slide of
13:18 reducing our reliance on
13:21 fossil gas. We have to
13:21 increase the number of clean
13:22 energy systems that were