Indiana University to help small towns access climate, resilience ... - WFYI
Indiana University to help small towns access climate, resilience funding
The city of Tipton during the flood of 2013. Courtesy of Tipton County
Indiana University wants to help small towns access funding for projects that reduce their impact on the planet and make them more resilient to things like flooding and extreme heat.
The Biden administration has made billions of dollars in grant funding available for these projects, but IU researchers found few communities can dedicate resources to apply for them.
READ MORE: Climate grants hardest to get for towns that need them most
That’s why IU’s Environmental Resilience Institute has teamed up with the Center for Rural Engagement to create the Indiana Resilience Funding Hub. It aims to help communities of less than 50,000 people figure out what they need, what grant funding is available and apply.
Bill Brown directs strategy and engagement at ERI. He said there’s funding for everything from renewable energy projects to stormwater improvement to helping cool cities down.
“You name it. There's a very wide range of opportunities out there. But it's such a massive grant law that people are having trouble wading through all that," Brown said.
READ MORE: How can cities and you prepare for more flooding due to climate change?
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People living in rural areas are especially vulnerable to climate change. They’re more likely to have jobs in agriculture or recreation — which are more susceptible to weather events like drought. They also tend to have less money than urban residents — which means they’re less able to pay for things like storm damage.
“So they have this combination of very high need for funding, but very low capacity to access that funding. So that's the critical issue that we're trying to tackle," Brown said.
ERI plans to hire a community funding specialist and four students to help with the hub.
Brown said the hub aims to work on about five to eight community projects in its first year, but will try to help as many communities as possible through other resources like informational webinars.
Rebecca is our energy and environment reporter. Contact her at rthiele@iu.edu or follow her on Twitter at @beckythiele.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”