Tara Ritter - Successful Climate Policy Requires Rural Engagement
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The document discusses efforts to address climate change in rural communities through the Rural Climate Dialogues partnership and Rural Climate Network. The Rural Climate Dialogues are 3-day events in Minnesota communities to study local climate impacts and develop responses, gathering a representative group of residents and local experts. Priorities identified are assisted with funding. The Rural Climate Network shares information between 50 rural climate groups nationwide to elevate rural perspectives in policy. They provide policy recommendations in areas like agriculture and energy shaped by principles of resilience and equity.
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Tara Ritter - Successful Climate Policy Requires Rural Engagement
- 1. What’s Being Done? Rural Climate Solutions Tara Ritter, Program Associate for climate and rural communities
- 2. Rural Climate Dialogues • Partnership between IATP and the Jefferson Center to create community-driven climate adaptation plans in rural communities • Dialogue locations: – Morris, MN – Grand Rapids, MN – Winona, MN
- 3. Rural Climate Dialogues • 3-day event to study local climate impacts and outline how the community should respond – “Citizen’s Jury” model gathers a demographically representative group of individuals – Local speakers as trusted messengers – Focus on uniting, not dividing. All perspectives welcome and encouraged
- 4. Rural Climate Dialogues • Priorities identified by each community • Assistance provided to find funding to implement recommendations
- 5. Rural Climate Dialogues • Goal to filter local recommendations up to state and national level policy development • Statewide convening planned for September 8 and 9
- 6. Rural Climate Network • 50 groups around the country working on climate change from a rural perspective • Information sharing network intended to elevate rural perspectives to inform state and national climate policy • www.ruralclimatenetwork.org
- 7. Rural Climate Policy Priorities • High level policy recommendations in 9 areas: – Agriculture -Forestry – Conservation -Health – Education -Infrastructure – Energy -Recreation &Tourism – Fisheries • http://www.ruralclimatenetwork.org/policy-priorities
- 8. Rural Climate Policy Priorities • Recommendations shaped by these principles: – Resilient – Equitable – Diverse, Democratic and Locally Determined – Transformative and LongTerm • http://www.ruralclimatenetwork.org/ policy-priorities
Editor's Notes
- Hi, I’m Tara Ritter with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. And I want to talk a bit about solutions – what’s being done to address this problem? Rural residents WANT action on climate change, but it must be beneficial for them. There are initiatives happening around the country where rural cities and counties are already successfully integrating climate planning and addressing climate impacts. I want to focus on some of these successes.
- The Rural Climate Dialogues are a partnership between IATP and an organization called the Jefferson Center. They are an on-the-ground initiative to bridge differences and talk about climate change in rural communities. They have yielded excellent climate adaptation plans in each of the 3 communities where we’ve hosted Dialogues over the past two years. Our first Dialogue took place in Morris, MN in 2014. The second was in Grand Rapids, MN in 2015. The most recent was in Winona, MN this past March. We chose these communities because they represent different parts of the Minnesotan rural economy – Morris is an agricultural community in the western part of the state, Grand Rapids thrives on forestry, lakes and tourism in the northern part of the state, and Winona has a large manufacturing sector and is located along the Mississippi in the eastern part of the state. We wanted to see what each of these communities prioritized in terms of climate planning, and what the common threads were.
- Each Rural Climate Dialogue is a three-day event that gathers a randomly selected but demographically balanced “Citizens Jury” of 15 to 18 individuals. The goal is to have a balanced group of ages, genders, political affiliations, education levels, and so on. Throughout the 3 days, the jury hears from 5-7 local experts on issues that were pre-identified as climate change priorities in the area. We pre-identify these issues through about 6 months of lead up work, where we visit the community multiple times to talk to local leaders and decision-makers about how climate change and increasing extreme weather is impacting their work and lives. The local experts who speak at the Dialogues act as trusted messengers to discuss exactly how the community is being impacted – for instance, the Morris City Manager talked about how local infrastructure is being impacted by hail storms and other extreme weather events, and a local extension agent in Winona County talked about how agriculture has changed in the area over the past 20 years. The discussions are focused on facts, with the goal of uniting rather than dividing. There’s a respectful encouragement of all questions and perspectives.
- At the end of the three days, the Citizens Jury has developed a climate adaptation plan for the area. This plan, completely co-written by the Citizens Jury, outlines top opportunities, challenges, and recommended actions for their community to take to address climate change. You can view these plans on the Rural Climate Network website. After the Dialogue is over, IATP and the Jefferson Center work to identify funding to implement some of the recommendations. With the help of a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency grant, Morris has implemented renewable energy at the residential, municipal, and business scales. Morris Area High School is incorporating climate change into its curriculum, and a partnership of churches, student groups, and other local programs are hosting community education events around the topic of climate change. In Grand Rapids, the high school is undertaking a rain garden installation to serve as a model for conservation science and green infrastructure. And in Winona, also with the help of a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency grant, plans are underway to increase energy efficiency county-wide, especially among low and fixed income households, and to address storm water runoff through increasing the number of rain gardens and rain barrels used in the area. These are all success stories of rural communities responding to climate change in a place-based, community-driven way.
- A goal of the Dialogues is to filter local recommendations up to state and national level climate policy development. One way we are doing this is by hosting a state convening, coming up on September 8 and 9 in St. Paul, MN. We will convene participants from each of the three Dialogues to share lessons learned and identify top rural climate priorities in Minnesota. We have invited legislative and state agency staff to attend the meeting and exchange information on resources they have available, as well as to listen to rural priorities – a perspective that is often under-represented, as we heard earlier.
- A larger initiative that’s working to elevate the rural voice in climate conversations is the Rural Climate Network – a group of 50 organizations and businesses across the country working on climate change from a rural perspective. The Network is an information sharing one; each member organization has a member page, there’s a member events calendar, and a newsletter that goes out bi-monthly. The idea is to share news from across the country about how climate change is manifesting in rural areas, and how different bodies – be it organizations, state agencies, or the federal government – are dealing with it. You can visit the website or sign up for the newsletter at the URL at the bottom of the page.
- A tangible product of the Rural Climate Network is a document that was released in December 2015 – the Rural Climate Policy Priorities. This document outlines high level climate policy recommendations from a rural perspective. The document is split into 9 areas – agriculture, conservation, education, energy, fisheries, forestry, health, infrastructure, and recreation and tourism. The document was collaboratively written, edited, and created by Rural Climate Network member organizations. There are 23 groups that officially endorsed the policy priorities. This document is an effective one to reference when discussing climate policy – making sure that these rural perspectives are being brought up and integrated into the discussion. The Rural Climate Dialogues that I talked about helped shape the content that ended up in the Rural Climate Policy Priorities.
- We created our priorities to focus on being resilient, equitable, diverse, democratic and locally determined, and transformative and long term. You can access the Policy Priorities at the URL on the screen – and I encourage you to integrate the ideas in the document into any rural climate planning or discussions you find yourself involved in. These priorities are meant to outline ways to make sure rural voices are lifted up and represented in climate policy development – to meaningfully include rural perspectives in a way that will decrease the inequities we heard about earlier in this webinar. There are many more organizations and communities across the country identifying and implementing meaningful solutions to this challenge. I’m sure Whitney, Gabe, and Scott know of many more as well, and you can certainly find countless examples led by Rural Climate Network member organizations.
- But with that, I’ll turn the rest of the time over to a discussion – we’re all looking forward to hearing your questions. And if you have anything to chat about post-webinar, don’t hesitate to reach out – my email address is on the screen. Thanks!