Tucson’s climate resiliency plan looks ahead into new year - KOLD

Tucson’s climate resiliency plan looks ahead into new year

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - A new plan called “Tucson Resilient Together” hopes to help counteract climate change with the amount of carbon emissions the city of Tucson is making.

It’s a big undertaking – making the city of Tucson carbon neutral by 2045. That’s over 20 years of work.

“The longest journey starts out with the first step,” Ward 6 city councilmember Steve Kozachik said. “We know that we have a big task ahead of us. Climate change is happening all over the world.”

They’re working on this in many ways. One of the main strategies is to make Tucson a “15-minute city” meaning no matter where you live, you will be a 15-minute walk or bike ride away from necessities like grocery stores and hospitals.

They’re also wanting to focus on creating a “zero waste” Tucson where all garbage doesn’t go into landfills, but into projects.

“A little over a year ago, we set up, what we thought at the time, was going to be a pilot program to see if the community cared about finding a use for non-recyclable plastics,” Kozachik said. “We set sort of a random goal to see if we could collect 20 tons between August and the end of the year. We blew that out of the water with no problem at all.”

People like David Yoder say they’re looking forward to many more programs to help as climate change becomes more and more concerning.

“Plastic bags concern me,” Yoder said. “There’s a wad of plastic bags out in the pacific that ships have to go around. It’s bigger than Texas!”

Kozachik says the response for these earlier programs leaves him optimistic for the future of climate resiliency.

“To the extent that we can find more productive uses for it,” Kozachik said. “The Tucson community has shown that they care and they’re going to do it.”

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