This week at Climate Week

I'm writing this from Climate Week, where Coefficient Giving is a sponsor of “The Urban Climate Solution” series, ten free sessions with the Parking Reform Network, Pew, and WRI's Ross Center, making the case that urban policy is the most neglected form of climate policy for climate funders. Wednesday's track is of particular interest to housers: The opening panel's framing device is the 2007 McKinsey global cost curve for climate abatement, which ranked all kinds of decarb interventions…and never included land use at all. But infill housing cuts VMT and carbon while running on infrastructure that already exists, and the policies that legalize it (ending exclusionary zoning, permitting infill by-right; ending parking mandates) cost governments nothing in fiscal terms, and generate large social benefits by breaking the tradeoff between economic growth and emissions reduction. The spiciest session might be "Build More, Electrify Faster," which takes seriously where housing abundance and building decarbonization could conflict if tradeoffs aren’t managed carefully. Transportation sessions run Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, including a congestion pricing retrospective now that even New York’s heavily-compromised launch edition of congestion pricing has strong numbers: 11% less congestion, 22% cleaner air, 7% more transit ridership.