Ramsey County Environmental Center in Roseville. Image via Ramsey County.
The city’s plan outlines climate goals across seven sectors for 2036
By Cecilia Wallace — Environmental Reporter
In an effort to promote environmental resilience efforts, the City of Roseville developed its first Climate Equity Action Plan with help from its Climate Justice Advisory Group and Staff Team.
The comprehensive plan outlines goals through 2036 and is in its draft review phase until June 6, 2026. Residents are encouraged to submit feedback on the city’s website until that date.
The plan has seven categories, which focus on the city’s most important goals: transportation, energy, resilience, health, natural lands, the economy and implementation.
Transportation Roseville
Roseville’s first transportation strategy is to decrease total community-wide vehicle miles traveled by 7.5%. To do so, they are taking eight different actions, which include prioritizing street funding to improve pedestrian safety, implementing the Roseville Bike Plan to construct more bike lanes and creating and promoting incentives for those who adopt alternative mobility.
Roseville has five other strategies falling under the transportation category, all with the end goal of reducing the city’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 30,979 metric tons (MT) annually by 2036.
Energy Roseville
By 2036, Roseville aims to have cleaner energy and efficient buildings. To accomplish this goal, they are adopting six strategies, which include increasing renewable electricity usage citywide, improving total government building energy efficiency, sourcing 100% of municipal building electricity from renewable sources and more.
The ideal result, according to the plan, is a total citywide Clean Energy and Efficient Buildings sector reduction of 54.9% below 2016 levels.
Resilient Roseville
More than two-thirds of Roseville residents said that they are concerned about climate change impacts on the availability of clean drinking water. Resilience helps our city prepare, withstand and recover from disruptions like that, the plan says.
To become a more resilient city, Roseville is working to increase the resilience of citywide buildings, update design standards to be prepared for storm water or flooding, promote reduced water consumption, decrease total municipal solid waste generated by10% and increase solid waste diversion 7% for recycling and 13% for organics.
Healthy Roseville
“Human and environmental health are closely linked,” says the Roseville Climate Equity Action Plan. When our water sources suffer, our people’s health does, too.
This section has three robust strategies to strengthen the city’s health: share resources that support healthy communities in the face of climate change impacts, increase local food production and access and reduce food waste and hunger. All of these strategies have multiple actions associated with them to support residents’ health amid climate change.
Natural Lands Roseville
The Natural Lands section of the plan has three specific goals for what the city’s environment should look like by 2036. They aim for 30.3% tree canopy cover citywide, 19.3% lawn cover (replaced with native grasses) and 21% dark impervious surface cover citywide. Forests and parks are allies in climate action as they can serve as buffers for floodwater, increase soil infiltration, store carbon, support pollinators and increase biodiversity— all important factors in combating climate change that will protect resources in the long run.
Economy Roseville
Similar to humans and environmental health being intertwined, economic prosperity is also closely linked to the climate. Delaying climate action exposes Roseville to “storm damage, heatwaves, drought and health impacts,” the Roseville Climate Equity Action Plan says.
To grow an equitable climate workforce and entrepreneurship and help local businesses build climate resilience, the plan aims to achieve 400 sustainability careers in the city and provide support to businesses by creating a communications and education plan, developing “a recognition program to promote Roseville as an environmentally friendly destination,” and exploring partnerships to establish a Roseville Climate Action Project grant program.
Implementation Roseville
The final section of the Climate Equity Action Plan discusses the equity in implementation, how organization is critical, how implementation is a shared responsibility, and how climate action is an ongoing process. The section also includes instructions on what residents can do and how to create their own plans to be a city leader regarding climate action.
To read more on the comprehensive Climate Equity Action Plan, click here.Cecilia Wallace can be reached at celiadw016@gmail.com.
