Boston is creating a new department to help coordinate its efforts to prepare for climate change. The Office of Climate Resilience will be part of the city’s Environment, Energy and Open Space cabinet and focus on protecting residents from challenges like rising sea levels, inland flooding and extreme heat.
“The purpose of the Office of Climate Resilience is to accelerate the city’s progress on the climate challenges that our city faces [by] helping us speed that transition between really thoughtful plans and really effective action,” said Chris Osgood, the office’s new director.
Boston has a lot of comprehensive plans already. Through its Climate Ready Boston initiative, the city has worked to map the coming effects of climate change on a neighborhood level — often block-by-block — and design creative adaptation plans with community input.
These plans, which include everything from redesigning waterfront parks and planting more trees, to modernizing the city’s underground sewer system, are complex and often necessitate the involvement of several city departments, as well as state and federal agencies and private businesses. In other words, Climate Ready Boston has a lot of moving parts.
Meeting the climate challenge may require “an all-of-government delivery approach,” said Brian Swett, the city’s first climate chief, but “there needs to be a single office, in our opinion, [focused] on climate resilience in Boston if we’re going to make the progress that we know is necessary.”
The Office of Climate Resilience will be in charge of coordinating work across city departments and with community groups and residents to make sure the recommendations outlined in the Climate Ready Boston plans are implemented quickly, equitably and effectively. Some of its immediate tasks include expanding Boston’s tree canopy to help counter blistering summer temperatures, as well as building infrastructure — including “green infrastructure” — to safeguard neighborhoods most likely to flood during big storms.
“Our objective isn’t just to protect against the [climate] threats,” Osgood said. “It’s making sure that we’re both more resilient in the face of climate change, and also a more liveable city going forward.”
Kate Dineen, for one, is “thrilled” about the new office. Dineen is the president of A Better City, a sustainable development nonprofit that represents business interests in the Greater Boston area
“Our resilience is key to our economic competitiveness,” she said. “I think this is a really welcome and critical investment in the organizational structure of the city.”
Dineen also praised the decision to tap Osgood to lead the office, calling him “incredibly savvy and strategic and collaborative.” Osgood previously served as the interim Chief of Environment, Energy and Open Space and Mayor Michelle Wu’s senior advisor on infrastructure.
Richard Galvin, CEO of CV Properties, a Boston-based commercial real estate company, wrote in an email that “Boston has been among the most proactive cities in working with the business community to address resiliency needs” and the decision to establish this new office will create an even stronger process for coordinating across the private, government and other interests involved with solving for the impacts of climate change and extreme weather.
“The timing on this move could not be better,” he added. “The clock is running out for all of us to create impactful change.”
Boston has 47 miles of coastline, much of which is vulnerable to flooding from rising sea levels and storm surge. Since 1950, sea levels around Boston have risen about 8 inches, and by the 2030s, the water could rise an additional 9 inches above 2013 levels.
The Office of Climate resilience will begin with Osgood and five other staff members who were previously working on resiliency issues in the environment department. According to the city, setting up the new office is budget neutral.