 Good afternoon and welcome to the cost of inaction climate threats and solutions for Arizona a special presentation by the issue Global Institute of sustainability and innovation and the environmental defense fund. It is my pleasure to introduce Dave White today, please take over. Thank you, Jason. I'm very pleased to introduce Mayor Kate Gallego to provide our opening comments. Mayor Kate Gallego is the second elected female mayor in Phoenix's history and the youngest big city mayor in the United States. She graduated from Harvard University and earned her MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Before being elected to the Phoenix City Council, Mayor Gallego worked on economic development for the local utility salt river project. Mayor Gallego is focused on three key policy areas during her time in office, diversifying the economy, strengthening infrastructure investment and working to make Phoenix a leader in sustainability. And this priority on sustainability is one of the main reasons that we're very proud at Arizona State University to partner with Mayor Gallego. So, and I should also say that in my part time I serve as the chair of the water and wastewater rate advisory committee, working with the water services department city manager's office and and mayor and council, and it's been my great pleasure to work alongside Mayor Gallego and her amazing team at the city of Phoenix so thank you so much for joining us Mayor and we appreciate your welcoming comments. Wonderful Dave thank you for the great introduction thank you to ASU and the Environmental Defense Fund for convening us for this important conversation, leading on sustainability is important to me but it's also important to the future of our city. It's a great day for your service, leading our water advisory panel, and I'm pleased to share with you in recent polling, the number one issue that Phoenix voters agree on is securing our water future. We all know we have to get this right we are a desert city, as we can innovate in the area of climate change and sustainability, we can thrive. That's one of the reasons we're here today, climate change is a huge challenge but I hope also an opportunity for us to lead the way, I think, some of the folks here today, and many of you who are signed into the webinar are among the folks who are going to come up with the solutions and so many of them will come from Arizona. As you heard a little bit about it's an issue of personal importance to me. I hold an environmental degree from my undergraduate background in my original involvement with the city of Phoenix was serving on the art, then known as environmental quality commission. So it's now renamed and gotten sustainability added to the name of the commission. It's a degree in environmental resold that people didn't have sustainability degrees when I began and I don't feel like I'm that old, but that shows how much this field has evolved and how many things have changed and improved. When I first got involved at the city of Phoenix, we would talk about three kilowatts of solar and pat ourselves on the back and now we're about to cut the ribbon on our 50th project and now we're talking more in the 10 megawatt range and having multiple projects so it's been neat to see the growth rate, how much more we were able to do how much more efficiently and that gives me optimism about solutions, which we need to have here are voters in 2015 voted for a general plan and Phoenix saying that we would be the most sustainable desert city in the world. So high marching orders but I think that we are up for a great challenge and we hope to lead in a variety of different areas to get there whether circular economy, we have some folks at the city of Phoenix who are globally known as leaders in the circular economy. We hope to continue to invest in preserve our sonoran desert such an ecologically diverse and important place and I got to tell you as someone who's spent much of 2020 hiking with her four year old and spending time outside I am so grateful that Phoenix is the city with more acres of parks than any other in the United States because we've needed the great outdoors as we've navigated the pandemic. The city of Phoenix is updating our climate action plan so we've had one for quite a while but now we are moving on and trying to get more ambitious to to match what's happening in our community so many of our large companies now have ambitious climate action plans. Our utilities are moving forward with net zero goals. And so we are going to step up and do more as we talk about accelerating our net zero emission goals from 2060 to 2050 or perhaps with the innovations we're going to talk about today even sooner. We're going to talk even more at the city of Phoenix about continued outreach and equity work, understanding that we need to involve our entire community as we move forward with that climate action plan. People are policy and we're lucky to have great leaders at the city of Phoenix who are moving forward. Mark Hartman from our team is going to be providing you an update as part of the panel. And we're hoping to get even more support there. I'm a believer that people are policy. And this year in the budget I'm a strong supporter of our new heat office, which is about a $2.8 million investment with 14 additional positions to address climate change and heat readiness. This includes cool corridors program which implements tree plantings and heat mitigation strategies in our most vulnerable neighborhoods aided by the wonderful research from Arizona State University including our walk shed mapping tool which helps us target those investments where they will help the most. We do have a lot of work to do in that area the number of people we've lost in our community to heat is too high and unacceptable. And I hope that we can again invest in insolutions. The city of Phoenix has put out requests for proposals for $14 million in facilities to address those who are most heat vulnerable and we expect some really great innovative proposals that will put heat preparation and readiness at the forefront so that for those requests will come out at the end of April if anyone is interested in applying in that area. Our heat office is not yet officially approved so it does have to go through our full budget offer our budget proposal and if you want to join us on May 18 that our budget meeting and so show support for climate change tree investments heat readiness. We certainly welcome you at our 230 budget meeting, which you can participate from via WebEx. While I'm talking with folks from ASU I just want to say a huge thank you for your partnership and making us a smarter, more equitable and more climate focused city. It's not just a walk shed tool but helping us with measuring the impact of our programs whether it be our cool pavement program, or how we manage our water supply. Dave's been very involved with with that. Thank you for joining us and other ASU researchers thank you for your partnership it's not going to be easy to meet meet beyond those are current goals for climate change and net zero is ambitious but we want to make it. We want to make it there and do innovative partnerships along the way. We want to hear more about those partnerships from Mark Hartman from our solar work to electric vehicles to more, and we are very excited to just be getting started with this. We got to we have a lot of work to do but with the folks who are involved today and participating I'm very optimistic that Phoenix can lead the way. Thank you for rising to the challenge of climate change and sustainability, and thank you for helping Phoenix with our many investments back to you Dave. Thank you mayor for those comments and thank you to you and to everyone at the city. You have emerged as a national and truly a global leader in climate action and sustainability and you've mentioned only a few of the initiatives that I know you and your team members are working on. Thank you for example in your, your leadership in the C 40 cities network and we could go on and on about the initiatives, you know, Phoenix and our region has the opportunity to demonstrate how a city can be sustainable and resilient. It can be economically prosperous, equitable, just and inclusive, and really provide examples to cities in the US and around the world so we're very proud to partner with you and appreciate your efforts and look forward to hearing more from Mark in particular, as well as Jenny and LG about the partnerships that we can create together, moving forward to advance your ambitious agenda so thank you again, Mayor Gallego for joining us. Now I would like to invite our panelists to join to turn on your cameras as our panelists are joining. I'd like to remind all of our attendees that you are free to add questions through the Q&A button on the zoom link on the zoom channel. And that way we can compile the question so please put the questions in the chat in the Q&A section as we go. And that way we'll compile those and we'll ask those questions as we get to the Q&A section. And so I'd like to now introduce just briefly our panelists and then we're going to ask each panelist to give an extended introduction and a highlight of two to three of the most critical points initiatives efforts that are underway as we all collectively attempt to address these climate threats and our focus today is really on solutions. We know there's a significant cost to inaction, and what we'd like to do today is focus on those solutions that we're collectively implementing through our partnerships to address the risks. And so our panel today includes myself. I'm the moderator. My name is Dave White. I'm the Deputy Director of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University. And I'm pleased also to welcome Mark Hartman, who is the Chief Sustainability Officer with the City of Phoenix, as well as Dr. Jennifer Vanoss or Jenny. And she is a professor, assistant professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. And we're also pleased to be joined by LG Holstein, who is Senior Director for Strategic Planning with Environmental Defense Fund, EDF. And LG, you can go ahead and turn on your camera. And that'd be great. And so what I'd like to do is to go through the panelists and we'll have LG kick us off to set the stage. Talk a little bit about the challenges that we faced to share a little bit about what the costs of inaction will be, and to describe the priorities for EDF and your goals in partnering, both at the federal level, but also at the state and local level. So LG, please take it away. Thank you very much. And hi, everybody. It's great to be back with you. I recall being at ASU in person. And I had hoped we would deal with the with this pandemic in time for me to get back there but unfortunately, we're now all learning how to do this so forgive the backdrop of my messy room here and the cat may walk across the keyboard. But I do want to start by mentioning just a personal a quick little personal story this happened 20 years ago. I was working in the government at the time and I went to Alaska, and I was with some scientists and we were up on the tundra. And one of them took out a, you know, regular old garden trowel and dug a hole deep enough. He told me go ahead and stick your arm in that in the in the hole and I put my arm in down up to about my elbow. And I could feel the ice of the permafrost that I've heard about my whole life, but I could also feel that it was melting the permafrost was melting. And all of that means in terms of the indigenous people who live there, the shift in the whole biology of the area. The many consequences of that for releasing a carbon into the atmosphere that for so many centuries have been held well over those last couple of decades since I had that incredible personal experience of course, the science of measuring the impacts of climate change global warming has become so much clearer where almost virtually every field of science has been validating what the what we have long feared was happening with the impacts on our planet on animals and of course on our communities and of humans. And so we now know that climate change is driving growing amounts of drought and all that comes with it in terms of crop failures and wildfires. It's also driving the weird and wild weather of hurricanes happening with greater intensity. Even thunderstorms carrying dumping more water more of our precipitation, our farmers tell us is happening in intensive amounts in short bursts, rather than the kind of longer extended sprinkling that's so much better for the crops. And of course we've learned a lot about the impacts on human health and the environment, including the disproportionate impacts in particular for those communities that are less equipped to deal with extreme weather, or may live in places like airports or around airports or something where the impacts of localized pollution are greater, are greater for those individuals and families. Listening to the mayor. I'm reminded as those of us who work in Washington DC need to be reminded from time to time that even if the problems that we are describing are national and international in scope. The solutions are local and the solutions and we talked about this at the last ASU conference on this subject. The solutions have to be tailored to the circumstances, including the political environment let's face it, but also the economic circumstances, and the attitudes of the, and inspiration of people at the state and local level, if we're going to actually bring about the kind of change that we need and I have total confidence that we do have the greatest brains in the world at our institutions to be brought to bear on these problems and that we can bring about the solutions we need. But time is of the essence and that's one of the other messages we're getting from the scientists is that we have so little time to take the action we need in order to start bending that curve of climate changing greenhouse gas emissions downward. And that's why we're very enthusiastic at Environmental Defense Fund, the opportunities that we have working with the new Biden administration, which is coming forward with infrastructure proposals and stimulus proposals that take care of our long standing needs like roads and bridges, but also taking care of if you will the new infrastructure. How do we get our steel plants our cement plants to be more energy efficient to emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions. How can we go after the low hanging fruit, which is the transportation sector, and really electrify that. So we're not putting unnecessary amounts of emissions into the air, and other types of solutions that are going to cost money. Yes, but we'll also, I think, rely upon the local circumstances and initiatives of people like Mayor Gallego who has described some of the some of the efforts that are underway there in the Phoenix area so all of that is specifically important. I'm going to mention just a couple of things very quickly and just. Why don't we, why don't we, I want to come back to you on a several of these key points that you've mentioned including the infrastructure question and some of EDF critical priorities. Let's move through just the brief introductions with the other panelists and then we'll circle back and hit on some of those key priorities for EDF. Good. Okay, thanks. So next I'm going to move for the for the extended introduction to Mark Hartman with city of Phoenix and so Mark can you just tell us a little bit about your office your work. And then as we cycle through and we'll come back and talk specifically in depth about some of your priorities. Sure, and hi and welcome and good to be here in this conversation. So yeah as teach the stability officer for the city. The goal is to really fulfill with the mayor outline to be how does Phoenix become the most sustainable desert city on the planet. And I like the reference of LG who who made reference to local action, you know cities are through these actions rehearsing our future that they are able to try and pilot and do and see these practical solutions. So interesting as we talk about, you know, as a unique role, although I'll speak, you know, in general term cities that we talked to, there's many actions I'll talk mostly about Phoenix here but cities around the globe are doing some pretty cool things. But our unique role is certainly on the desert side and you know some some say oh what do you city shouldn't even be in a desert but actually, you know, desert are actually we're naturally desert adapted not only the trees are desert adapted the people are desert adapted a lot of our functions. You know, so, you know the idea of the extreme conditions of a desert well, you know, adversity has its own gifts, and it really does teach us things about how to do things differently. I would say though that, you know, with historic disparities it hasn't actually haven't equitably done applied those solutions throughout our city so I think the real focus has been in the last few years rightly so that we need to actually for those disproportionately affected we need to actually provide a disproportionate amount of investments in those communities, particularly cooling solutions and ones to actually make it, you know, as the earth is turning up the temperature, where, you know, we certainly will even have greater challenges in the future so you know but I, we're really fortunate for ASU kind of the epicenter of research related to heat. It is really, you know, we're so benefiting from being in the proximity of that research and being the recipients of that and it's really catalyzed where it was, I would say if I can, you know, say historically it was somewhat more on the academic side it's really moved the practical. And so working very closely with one of Jenny one of the co panelists working with her and phone calls with her about specific solutions in the specific schools and with with others on the faculty about solutions and even around the cool pavements that we're putting Phoenix now has more cool pavement than any other city in the world. So we're talking with C 40 cities around the globe and talking about how we're doing it and able to do that much more quickly than than typically in historically so really a lot of exciting actions, we're doing relating to cooling. And one last reference is just, we've mentioned the climate action plan and traditionally climate action plans are very much focused on just specifically looking at greenhouse gas emissions but for us we say hey climate's one of the five seas and our climate very much related to heat and water and and greenhouse gas emissions along with that. So our solutions is going to be a specific heat section related to that so many of the solutions we're talking about today will be things that will feature and set some ambitious goals related specifically to those. So there you go there was my initial speed off. Thanks Mark really appreciate that and a perfect segue for Dr venas to talk about her work so why don't you tell us, Jenny, what, what do you do at ASU what is a what is a professor of sustainability study and and how do you work with the city to advance the use inspired science as we talk about at ASU so thank, thank you Mark for recognizing that that the university, you know, in our charter we talk about taking fundamental responsibility for the economic social cultural environmental well being of the communities we serve so that's part of our our mission, part of our charter and it's, it's great to hear that that that's being recognized by our partners. Yeah, thank you so much Dave. Hi everyone, as Dave mentioned I'm assistant professor in the school sustainability. My background is in atmospheric and environmental sciences and I predominantly focus on the impacts of extreme heat and air quality to urban populations and really focus on those who may be more vulnerable to those impacts and that ranges from person to person. And it's extremely energizing to work at a place like ASU were smack dab in the middle of the hottest city in the country, and one of the hottest in the world, and one of the fastest growing counties. And I think that when we're able to have this living laboratory and have centers like the urban climate research center at ASU, we're really able to pull together a lot of different disciplinary experts to be able to solve some of these problems, and work hand with different cities around such as the city of Phoenix, and other community groups. So, bottom line up front, a few points that I like to hit and I'd be happy to expand on these as we move forward. It's just related to extreme heat all heat caused to deaths are preventable. There's a lot we can do about it there's a lot we know. And I think we need to move towards a zero vision on heat deaths in the city. Extreme heat and air pollution are problems now, they've been problems in the past, they exist now. And I don't, I think that we want to make sure we recognize that they are issues that we need to deal with now, and not couch them only in climate change because it might make people then assume we let's deal with it in 50 years, where we know we're losing lives now we have extreme numbers of hospitalizations due to heat related illness now. I think that's a really important point to get across and the last point I'll mention is just, there's a lot that we know that we can do now and take action and how we can adapt and how our communities can adapt. But working with communities as part of that working with the cities, and really getting boots on the ground to do some of this. It's a collective effort to really understand these cascading or compounding impacts that we see in cities, and that we are seeing increase. So I think it's important to understand that but also important to understand that what we know a lot there's still a lot that we do not know around these complex topics and therefore, you know, being able to do this research in a really applied manner with broader impacts can make a really big difference and now and into the future. I really appreciate those comments and, you know, a couple threads are emerging just from the introductory notes and, and one is the focus on urgent action now right climate change is not a distant challenge it is a challenge that we're facing. And as the United States National Climate Assessment concludes that the climate crisis is affecting American communities now. But American communities are also responding they're responding in ways to make their cities more resilient, more economically vital, more just and equitable. And so this is some not a future distant challenge this is a challenge that we must face now, but it's also a challenge that gives us great opportunity, great opportunity for innovation, great opportunity to advance on a number of fronts if we if we address some of these challenges will improve the quality of life for our citizens across the board. So I'd like to return now to LG and pick up on something that you noted in your initial opening comments LG and that is, there's, you know, unprecedented attention, proposed investment and policy discussion at the federal level. Now to address the climate crisis. So what are some of EDF's most critical priorities, and how from your perspective could federal activity support state and local action as you mentioned that the state and local level is often where these solutions are developed and implemented, where, you know, mayors are focused on, on solving problems and serving their communities they're close to their constituents, the federal agencies can provide investment guidance stimulation. So what are your priorities and working with the federal government and how can that help us at the state and local level. And there's no doubt about the fact that solving this problem of climate change is going to take everyone playing a role. Some, some of the things that need to be done are sort of uniquely federal responsibilities, but others are things that will only work if they can be managed, carried out and tailored at the local level as I said in my opening remarks. Let me give you an example of the first category what should the feds be doing. We believe that we need more investment in clean energy research and development. So whether that's bringing the cost of renewable energy down even more it's already the cheapest new form of electricity generation, but we can do more to bring those costs down more and we can expand our renewable energy generation for example into the offshore areas, as they're planning to do off the east coast. So research and development. That's an important thing and another aspect of that is, how do you decarbonize big industries like cement and steel. We want those industries to thrive. We just want them to be cleaner, and we need research and development sponsored by the federal government to including working through our university systems around the country to find the best ways to do that. Also, carbon capture and sequestration carbon removal. These are technologies that help us manage the emissions that come from the fossil fuels we're still using and that we will obviously continue to use for some, for some period of time. So that's the research and development component. What are some things that are in the on the federal agenda, if you will, and I'm here citing some things that President Biden has talked about but people on both sides of the aisle have talked about. There's just a couple of them. One of them is transportation, I call that the low hanging fruit, a few minutes to go. We really need to do something to electrify our transportation, the major US auto companies are saying this is where they want to go this is where they want to go. But we're not going to have electric vehicles in this country. And we're not going to, we're not going to be leading the world in electrical vehicle electric vehicle production, if we don't have charging stations. And so we need about 500,000 charging stations all around the country, and we need federal funds to make that kind of new infrastructure investment. So while we fix up the highways and bridges. Let's be sure that the rest stations have charging stations for rapid charging. That's going to be critical to electrifying transportation, and that's something the federal government should be should be helping to pay for, just as they did in the original construction of the interstate highway system back in the 1950s. Two other quick examples. One is school buses, you have a young population in the Phoenix area, and you have growing school systems, and you have hundreds of school buses on the road every day. And even though diesel fuel has gotten somewhat cleaner in recent years, the air quality inside a diesel fuel school bus can be five, six, seven, eight times worse than it is outside. And so we're essentially trapping our kids in these buses using old and dirty technology, when we already know and already have on the market, electric school buses, they cost a little bit more at the front end, but they save money in the long term because their operation and maintenance costs are lower. This is particularly true. If, as they're doing here in Virginia, if you were to link the school buses to the electric grid. So you have an electric school bus, it goes about its routes during the day. It's completely clean. And at the end of the, at the end of the day, it hooks up to the electric grid and provides that battery support just at the time of day that would be hottest time of day most people are turning on their air conditioning or maybe they're starting dinner. That sort of thing and so the electricity use in the home is going to go up, and you need more electric power at that time and guess what the batteries in the school buses can provide that. So at night, when the demand is dropped down again the school buses recharge to work the next day. That's something that we're very excited about seeing done at the federal level, and will be a priority for EDF and other organizations in working with Congress in the coming months. And one last one really does relate directly to the kind of economic growth engine that has been Arizona story in recent years. And that is a new federal green bank or green energy accelerator some people are calling it. And the basic idea is to provide and Joe Biden is proposed $30 billion for this to create an initial infusion of capital that would be available for entrepreneurs for business people for local governments let's say in Arizona on a totally voluntary basis. Let's say you build a you want to build a new warehouse, and you want to put it put on top of that warehouse solar solar arrays in order to help deal with the people needs of that building. You can take a loan or get a loan guarantee from this new federal green bank that we're hoping will pass the Congress as well. And then, as the loans are repaid, that money goes back into the bank like a revolving fund and becomes available for the next project. And so this puts capital into the system. It provides a place where local entrepreneurs and governments can go to get funding in order to finance these green energy projects. Well, all at the same time using the, the guidelines that a banking, a regular bank would use to be sure that it's a project that really is going to pay off in the end, and going to bring benefits to everyone. So that's an example of two or three things that I think are high priorities as we go forward and real opportunities for bringing both parties together in Congress to provide the funds to get going on some of these activities. Great. Thanks, Elgin. We'll pick up on a couple of those threads, I think, in our discussion here, especially, you know, talking about working with specifically with some of our most important and vulnerable populations, including school children, some many of much of Jenny's work has focused recently on building up resilience to heat impacts among schools, and also just the importance of integrated solutions, you know, you talk about the energy transition. For example, this is not simply a technical challenge of, you know, building new electrification capacity this is integrating across, you know, economic social and technological systems and that's one of the focal areas of the sustainability perspective that Jenny and Mark and others bring. So Mark, let me turn to you, as you've described the city is implementing a wide range of sustainability solutions to address the climate crisis, many of them are discussed in the updated climate action plan. Which we invite all of our participants to weigh in on there's a link in the chat to to the current version of the plan and an opportunity for your comment and feedback. One of the major found challenges we face is extreme heat. So maybe what can you narrow in what is the city doing to mitigate urban heat, and how are you partnering across your, your city departments and with universities and others to address this challenge. Certainly. And if actually I can just do one quick shout out to LG and just say, you couldn't hear me because I was muted but I was actually clapping you know I hearing these what he's advocating for at the national level so yeah that's great that people are we each have our roles so great he's doing that for us the cool, you know the idea of cool corridors has been is really resonating and people are saying yes this is what we desire here in the desert is we actually, you know asked people, you know, if there was a cool pathway from where would you walk more often than you do now and 86% of people said yes, you know so it's really something people go I'd love to have that and love to have Google maps give me the walking path of the most shaded route. Our cool corridor concept is very, very much in partnership with ASU and many of the research teams there. This idea of like a mile long corridor that goes in vulnerable neighborhoods that has, you know, basically 60 to 75% shade canopy through both structured and trees, and even on street corners shading. So to really I think the cool corridor concept and even could be supplemented by things like our cool pavement. You know the cool pavement technology really interesting is just how it can actually lower the neighborhood temperatures and really be a benefit particularly the biggest benefit is not so much right at midday but actually in the evening to be much cooler. That's really where you really see the benefit of that. So, so certainly, you know, and I think I think a greatest outcome of all of this as we talk about. Sure, yes, it's important to cities cooler and all these things but I think that a real what's not talked about much is the social cohesion that comes with that when people are out in able to walk more and able to be in their neighborhoods and find out who their neighbors are that actually is the most beautiful thing of all like that's really isn't that what we're that's a really side benefit that's not we can look at it from a scientific point of view and maybe kind of forget that beautiful human side. But you know we've gone away from the front court societies that you know what the you know where everyone was on their front porch in the evenings and visited you see a little bit of that in some neighborhoods in Phoenix but not so much but you know it's the whole idea of people being out and being walking more and biking more and finding other people are and really creates social cohesion I mean we. There's been a lot of dis cohesion lately, socially, and I think that that the benefit of this actually just recognizing and meeting one another because a real important aspect of this. Absolutely. Thank you mark and I'm sure the social scientists on the call and at the university will very much appreciate that commentary about the importance of the social cohesion the social capital that is built that allows people to create bonds with their community members, and that is an important benefit of the investments that we're making in the heat mitigation that you described and I want to just point out that we've shared in the chat if you want to learn more about the city of Phoenix's climate actions, specifically about the cool pavement programs and other programs. There was a series PBS peril and promise in which Mayor Gallego spoke with Frank says enough PBS about specifically that program, and also featured one of our students from ASU a master school of sustainability, a Dora Shortridge who studies with Dr. Vanoss and and Dora will actually be defending her master's thesis in about an hour. Focus on exactly these kinds of challenges so with that will will turn it over to to Jenny so Jenny your research, you know specifically aims working with the urban climate research center at ASU and other partners across the university and with the city. You specifically look at strategies to mitigate extreme heat impacts, and you often focus on vulnerable population, including school children. So how does extreme heat impact, you know different communities in the valley. And what do you find to be some of the biggest challenges in conveying the urgency, or the seriousness of this problem. Yeah, thanks Dave. So I think I'm, I'm glad you added extreme heat impacts, like impacts to the end because we often say what, how can we mitigate extreme heat but what about the impacts to people or water or energy. And so I think it's important to focus on those and therefore by mitigating some of those heat levels, we can try and quantify the benefits to these other societal outcomes and impacts to the economy and environment. But in our work on extreme heat, what we know really well is that every single person copes with heat very differently. And then even when you look across the population we know that one person's pathway to heat exposure differs tremendously from another person's pathway to heat exposure, or some people are just not exposed to heat in their everyday life. So it's really important to recognize those differences, because in a way it can turn into a one size fits one approach, instead of a one size fits all approach, and understanding that when we go down to the person level and and think about what could be an individual to die of heat, or to experience heat illness and end up in the emergency room. There's a lot of different factors we do know that age is a big concern, and that as someone ages they become less able to some regulate. And so we know that focusing on our elderly populations, especially those who might be more socially vulnerable or low income and not have some of the coping capacities. Whether it's an air conditioning or a working air conditioner. That's really important to focus on. And what's their occupation. We know that males and outdoor workers are extremely vulnerable to heat in the valley. What can we do about that and take action now from the policy level to ensure that they're getting what they need to make sure they can work safely. What connects to productivity and how does he affect productivity, and the bottom line for companies and so by mitigating heat and providing cooler spaces we can try to keep productivity up while keeping people safe I think that's an important factor. So what do you think of preexisting illness, if someone's on medications, are there are there issues with drug or alcohol use. What else, what else could contribute that are either extrinsic or intrinsic factors in this individual's that could have could have caused them to experience a heat death. And that's why I said at the start of this that all he does, he caused us are preventable because we can think about these vulnerabilities and do something about it. And that that that gets back to my, my idea about it this is a now problem and and there is a lot we know now to protect the most vulnerable from he and we know that even as the air temperature varies the vulnerability of our population in Maricopa County in the city of Phoenix can be a better predictor of the number of heat deaths than the temperature itself. The temperature is really important to mitigate for so many reasons and we need to keep striving for solutions to mitigate air and surface temperatures across the city. It's a collective action across all of these other different potential solutions, and just related to children I think, you know we're working in schools or working with schools we're trying to co produce some solutions such as working in neighborhoods in south Phoenix where students have input and what what they want their school yard to look like what shady spaces they want to see what plants they want to plant, and then they plant the trees. And that's where you get buy in and that's where you see empowerment to make changes on the small scale but as LG said those small scale changes will lead to big impacts. We know that while children are not as vulnerable to dying in extreme heat, we do know that there been just last year there were 925 emergency department hospitalizations of children who are elementary school in the county. So I think that's important to recognize that that there's these this continuum of impacts, and it's not only desk that matter but it's that productivity that health that learning the ability to be active and stay active and healthy is really important. So the last thing I'll add here around this is just, you know, as we think about what we know now and what we can do now that can help us adapt into the future to the changes we're seeing. We can think about looking back in, where have we made progress, where do we know that we've made a difference and how can we keep on from implementing that on larger scales. And so, when we think about the IPCC and their categories of adaptation behavioral adaptation is a really important part of that. And that means education, educating people that the climatization is important that staying healthy is important to be able to handle extreme heat. There's a lot that you can do from the behavioral level but then the infrastructure that we're talking about the technological adaptations and the physiological adaptations those all come together to help people stay safe and the think that's an important point to make as well. Great, thank you. I'm Jenny and I think one thing that really comes through clearly when you're talking about is extreme heat provides a perfect example of how you know this is a global challenge right because we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we need to reduce and limit the impact of global climate change on median temperatures or average temperatures around the globe, but that translates into a specific local context. And then we know there are some uncertainties about those future impacts but we have the knowledge and we have the capacity to act now to address many of those impacts and those outcomes. And we know how to do that in cooperation in collaboration with the people who are affected as you say to build that capacity to build that ownership and to build that agency for people to be able to take actions on their own. And so what I'd like to do now is I'd like to invite Sarah Porter to join the panel. Sarah is the director of the Kyle Center for Water Policy at the Morrison Institute at Arizona State University, and we've asked Sarah to listen into the panel, and to provide her comments on kind of the key messages that she's heard across the different panelists, and I'll say one last encouragement for people joining we have nearly 100 participants on this session. Love to hear some of your questions so please include those into the Q&A section. I see several of our ASU students in there if I don't get more questions from the audience I'll start calling out specific students. So let's let's let's put some questions into that chat. Sarah what are your sort of insights across everyone's comments so far. Well thank you I want to thank you Dave for moderating and organizing the panel and thank the panelists all of you, the insights that you've contributed have been really helpful and I also want to thank Jason and Lauren and Liz for all the work in organizing this important discussion. My big takeaways are, you know, LG started out by saying all solutions are local and I think that's because impacts are local, as well as other aspects that LG cited and clearly we've heard today that, you know, we often think about carbon about climate change in terms of, you know, greenhouse gas emissions are kind of data, but it's really, it's very meaningful I think here in this conversation to personalize it so much and to think about the impacts on people all around us that we, we see when we, you know, walk across the campus or I work at the downtown campus especially walking downtown. As Mark well knows it can be hot in the summertime and there are people there who may not have access to relief from that heat. So, so I appreciate the fact that this discussion has connected the dots from the big picture issues to the local. But LG said that that solutions need to be tailored to local is, you know, really makes sense. And I especially appreciated the insight that they need to be tailored politically as well. And there is a question from Adam Weichmann, which I hope the panelists will address which kind of gets to that how do we move the political process in a way to get to solutions. We heard from LG some really practical things that are kind of exciting. I had no idea. I knew that diesel buses were bad I had no idea how bad they were appreciated that input, and an exciting idea for a revolving fund so these are issues that we agree bank energy bank revolving and other things that we can get behind we can find out more about them and if appropriate contact our representatives and help support some of these things. But to get to go more local marks characterizing Phoenix as a place as with other cities that is rehearsing our future was a great insight. Certainly, the city is well along on addressing climate impacts, but it is in cities, and we've heard it loud and clear today working alongside researchers, like Dr. Vanoss, with where these solutions can be tested. I'm very interested to hear Phoenix being characterized as really kind of the test bed city for sustainable desert city, and it makes me proud as an ASU employee to know that ASU use inspired research is being integrated into that test bed process. And I think that we'll have a map of the cool corridors, one of these days so that we can go walk them and enjoy them ourselves. And then finally, Dr. Vanoss really contributed I think this, this important idea of how this, this affects humans and it, and it's, for me to think about how children are particularly affected. And of course reminded me that this is a discussion about their future, more than anything else. So they are particularly vulnerable as are the elderly but they are also particularly in the long term, affected by the decisions. And as you said Dr. Vanoss, it's happening now, these are things that it's not something out in the future, we want, we want these solutions to be implemented and we're seeing impacts now. So those are kind of what I heard is the big themes and I see that a lot of good questions have come in so I'm looking forward to responses to those questions. Great, thank you so much Sarah and Sarah please, you know, stay stay with us for the remainder of the panel. And what I'd like to propose is we have some great questions coming in so we're going to try to do is a bit of a rapid fire so give me, give me your, you know, 30 second, important insight answer and I'll try to get through as many of these questions as we can. So as Sarah mentioned I'm going to start with Mark on this one from Adam Weikman. I appreciate the urgency for significant local action, like transitioning built infrastructure. How can we channel this urgency towards the quote soft infrastructure, like institutions that govern our cities. So what kind of innovations are happening to change institutions as well. I think, you know, certainly the change of institutions is happening from both the grassroots and from individuals hearing about I mean I think that's the communication message of, as people are passionate I'm amazed as we bring out goals around tree planting and bringing organizations to donate to tree canopy and to adopt streets and to contribute that that it's transforming from the inside of people inside out to really see that change and I am inspired regularly by hearing people stories of where passionate from, you know, from all those of organizations that are really seeking and calling out for change. And so, seeing that happen is really, I, you know, certainly heard many passionate CEOs that I've heard from employees. And I think that that change in is, it's pretty unanimous. I think that, you know, we have society I think is itself is great suffers from inertia. Because the people are very much I think they're ahead, you know, they're ahead of where we are and where we need to be. And so I think there's really great support from moving forward. Great, thank you so much. So the next question I'm going to ask LG perhaps to attack this one first. This is coming from George Pettit, given recent weather induced electric grid infrastructure failure in Texas. What are the risks to electrical grids generation and distribution systems, perhaps here in Arizona or in other places in the country and, and what can we do to build up the resilience of those systems. Very hard question to answer really quickly. But the answer is no and yes, the situation does not have to be as bad as it was in Texas. Texas made a decision many years ago to isolate its electric grid from surrounding states and from the rest of the country, and they paid the price for that. They also paid the price for failing to provide resilience in the electric generating system that they do have and in the energy inputs that support that generation, they're going to have to fix that. And they're going to have to reconsider rejoining the rest of the nation in a more integrated grid. The other on the other hand, I think we have a lot of opportunities in the parts of the country that have seen that renewable energy needs to be moved let's say from Arizona to California and other load centers other centers of demand. So we do need more long distance transmission to move our clean power from the places where it's generated. But at the same time, even in places where there may not be a lot of new renewable energy. For whatever reason, we can make use of distributed energy resources like micro grids, like maybe, maybe it doesn't work for solar power but it works for wind power, thinking again about offshore wind that is booming off the east coast of the United States. From across the across the up and down the Atlantic seaboard so the short answer is we do need to make some investments if we want to bring more clean energy into our systems, mostly in transmission, but not only in transmission we also need utility scale storage, we also need micro grids and much greater integration of systems, including software as well as hardware systems to make the whole system work much better, and to be much more resilient it can be done. And it's, it doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive. If every region of the country pitches in, once again, with their unique contributions and look how well positioned Arizona is to be a national leader in in providing that kind of clean power. It's fantastic, and it really does underscore something I should have mentioned at the very beginning which is, when all is said and done, the icing on this cake is really about new jobs, new job creation something we're all concerned about right now is going to be a key additional benefit as we clean up the environment. Great, thanks LG. We're going to wrap up shortly just a couple final questions. One was addressed to the around the question of ASU research specifically in the. This comes from, I'm sorry one second get back to the question. I have a question about the cool pavement research and so ASU has been involved in that research Jenny. Can you just give us a quick summary of what the, what the action is what kind of research is ongoing Leslie Hammond asked this question, what are we doing in the cool road surface research and where are we headed with that. Thanks for the question so there are about eight neighborhoods that got cool pavement last summer, and around July, August, September, and ASU has been studying in some capacity all eight neighborhoods, surface temperatures, your temperatures and surface temperatures to see the impact on those so so some of that data has already been collected and we're in the analysis process, and then some is ongoing because we're trying to look at long term changes. So how much does the reflectivity potential decrease over time. We also help the lifetime of the pavement itself by keeping service temperatures down. We also have really nice helicopter overflights with thermal images showing how what is the impact on surface temperature of these cool pavement versus the asphalt seal that is often put on. While data analysis and collection is ongoing we do have some results just around what Mark mentioned earlier so seeing the largest air temperature declines versus areas with asphalt streets, just after sunset, which is nice because the greatest magnitude of the urban heat island occurs in the dark overnight. So that's great the magnitudes of those are not too high but. So if we see a point five degrees Fahrenheit cooling at that time which is what we're seeing on average across the neighborhoods we studied that can mean a lot for human health and for energy use and water use in those neighborhoods. So the surface temperatures can be about negative 16 degrees Fahrenheit lower in the middle of the day in those neighborhoods compared to asphalt. So the the signals differ by time of day by neighborhood we studied. And of course there's lots more research that we can do on this as we try and figure out what's the best place and way to apply these cool seals so that we can have the biggest impact on on the air temperatures. Fantastic. I gotta I gotta chime in on one exciting thing about that is that if it does truly extend the life of the pavement that it will be economic to actually then put this on every surface and every roadway and all of Phoenix because it's actually becomes cheaper last longer so then your department buys right in. That's fantastic and I want to make one final point mark pointed out in the comments there was a question about cop 26 and yes. The city of Phoenix will be represented Mayor Gallego will be attending cop 26 so we'll have we'll have participation both from the university and from the city. So let's take a final note that all of the resources that we've described throughout the event, including links to additional information, including the EDF costs of an action report, which was one of the reports that stimulated the creation of this panel so we want to say thank you to EDF for their work and highlighting that and then I also just want to say thank you once again to Mayor Gallego for her opening comments. Thank you so much to Mark for your work on from this, the city of Phoenix and in your role as sustainability officer. Thanks to Dr Vanoss for your work, doing research in partnership, you know having such great impact on people's lives. Thanks to LG and your team at EDF for your advocacy and for your action at all levels of government to try to promote solutions and thank you Sarah for your comments, bringing together the highlights and the insights from across our great conversation and with that I will bring our event to a close and say thank you so much to everyone who was able to attend.