Briefing Series: By Air, Land, and Sea: Navigating the Climate Future

Find out more about the briefings in this series below:

• According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the “blue economy” will double to $3 trillion by 2030, but only if it is focused on “innovation and sustainability.”

• Washington state developed the first and only U.S. statewide plan for the “blue economy” in January 2019. Its elements include low-carbon industry, scientific innovation, workforce development, and public-private partnerships.

• Marine terminals are water dependent and susceptible to the impacts of climate change. Water levels have been rising for the last 100 years because of sea level rise and land subsidence. The Port is vulnerable to a number of climate risks: extreme rain events; extreme temperatures; high winds; snow, ice, and hail events; and increased sedimentation in the channel

• The Port of Baltimore considers resilience for all capital project designs. It is identifying potential resilience partnerships with federal, state, and local partners. Finally, it is investigating electric and micro-grid improvements, redundancies, and emergency power generation options.

• Space in upland containment facilities is very limited, leading to a need for “innovative reuse” and “beneficial use”—that is, using dredged sediments on land or in water. Dredged sediment has been used for habitat development, remedial capping material, and landfill cover.

• Aviation-related emissions account for 2.6 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and nine percent of U.S. transportation sector emissions.

• Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is a low-emission aviation fuel that can be blended with traditional jet fuel and used in existing aircraft engines. SAF, which has been certified by regulators as meeting safety requirements, can reduce aviation emissions by at least 50 percent compared to conventional fossil jet fuels.

• Rep. Julia Brownley's newly introduced Sustainable Aviation Fuel Act (H.R. 8769) would address marketplace challenges and boost production for sustainable aviation fuel.

• SAF uses sustainable feedstocks such as waste oils, fats, greases, sugars, purpose-grown oil seed crops, and municipal solid waste.

• The commercial aviation industry has three basic goals: (1) to be more efficient at a rate of 1.5 percent annually, (2) to achieve carbon neutral , and (3) to emit 50 percent less carbon in 2050 compared to 2005. These reductions will come primarily from radical new technologies and sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).

• By 2025, the SAF industry expects to produce over a billion gallons per year—about one percent of the total global production of jet fuels. Some European countries are setting SAF mandates for their commercial fleets.

• Los Angeles (LA) Metro’s sustainability program began in 2007 and has been cost-neutral since 2017. The program’s economic success has come from selling carbon credits, establishing private-public partnerships, and setting up other funding mechanisms that have generated $120 million in net revenues, which have been reinvested into other sustainability projects. LA Metro expects the program to generate about $1 billion over the next decade.

• LA Metro has adopted an adaptive design/flexible adaptation pathway model, and it is incorporating new climate science into infrastructure planning and design to make systems more adaptive to the future effects of climate change.

• VIA (San Antonio, Texas) has taken a comprehensive approach to addressing the pandemic. The agency found ridership never fell below 50 percent of regular ridership, indicating the critical need for bus services.

• VIA has invested in compressed natural gas (CNG) for its buses. Conversion to CNG began in 2017, and once fully implemented, it will reduce NOx emissions by 97 percent compared to the replaced diesel buses. VIA recently entered into a new partnership with CPS energy, which will provide renewable natural gas from landfill biomethane for the bus fleet. VIA’s current CNG fleet can use the new renewable natural gas fuel, lowering CO2 emissions by 85 percent compared to diesel fuel.

• SEPTA ( Southeastern Pennsylvania) has approached sustainability in a budget-neutral way. Sustainability has been pursued through off-budget financing, grant funding, and embedding sustainability into SEPTA’s core business operations

• Through Power Purchase Agreements, SEPTA has on-site rooftop solar at its largest bus maintenance facility, and 20 percent of its electricity load is met through off-site utility-scale solar.

• Transit is a social, economic, and environmental net benefit to society, and it advances sustainability.