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Want $1 Million? Drop that extra car

Most people think of their cars as working for them. They imagine convenience, freedom, maybe even status.

But for many American households, especially those with an unnecessary extra car, that second or third vehicle quietly burns through enough money to take away real long‑term wealth.

If you want a surprisingly powerful path toward $1 million, start by exploring whether you really need every car in your driveway.

The hidden cost of owning a car

Owning a car or more per adult is normal. Monthly payments are normal. Gas, insurance, repairs, registration, parking, and random fees are normal.

But “normal” is expensive.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American household spends around $12,000 per year on transportation, and the largest portion of that is personal vehicles, including the cost of the car itself, insurance, fuel, maintenance, and repairs (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024). That’s about $1,000 a month, per household, tied up in keeping cars on the road.

In many two‑ or three‑car households, one of those vehicles is barely essential. It’s a convenience. A backup. A “just in case.” That “just in case” can be the difference between coasting financially and becoming a millionaire over time.

What if you invested your car money instead?

Let’s say you find a way to live with one fewer car. You sell it, cancel the insurance, stop paying to fuel and maintain it, and you redirect that $1,000 a month into an investment account instead.

Now invest that $1,000 per month consistently for 25 years and earn an average annual return of 8 percent (compounded monthly for simplicity):. What you get:

$946,000

So getting rid of an unnecessary extra car and investing the savings could put you within striking distance of one million dollars over 25 years.

Not by being a brilliant entrepreneur, taking big risks, or by winning the lottery. Just by not owning a vehicle you don’t truly need and investing what you would have spent on it.

But do I really “spend” that much on my car?

Many people underestimate what a car costs because they only think about the monthly payment.

Here’s what usually gets missed:

  • The payment (if you have a loan or lease)
  • Insurance premiums
  • Gas
  • Routine maintenance (oil changes, tires, brakes, etc.)
  • Unexpected repairs
  • Registration and taxes
  • Parking, tolls, tickets

The American Automobile Association (AAA) regularly estimates that the annual cost to own and operate a new vehicle is in the five‑figure range when you add all of those pieces together (American Automobile Association, 2023). If you’re driving something newer or higher‑end, or you live in a high‑cost city, your real number may be even higher.

If your “extra” car is financed, the financial drag is even worse: you’re paying interest on a depreciating asset that’s losing value every year.

The lifestyle tradeoffs that make this possible

Dropping from two cars to one (or from three to two) isn’t always painless. It usually requires some mix of adjusting commuting patterns, occasionally using rideshare or car‑share, carpooling with coworkers, friends, or family, and/or planning errands and appointments more rigorously.

It may involve getting a bike, ebike, and/or using the bus more. And it all might be easier or harder depending on where you live.

But notice something important: even if you sometimes use taxis, rideshare, or short‑term rentals, that doesn’t come close to the full cost of owning, insuring, and maintaining an extra vehicle for the entire year. The all‑in ownership cost is what quietly kills your wealth.

Some families find that rethinking where they live is part of the equation: moving a bit closer to work, transit, or schools can lower or eliminate the need for that extra car, and also reduce stress and commute time.

This isn’t just about deprivation. It’s about thinking more strategically about transportation for a lot more long‑term freedom.

Why 25 years matters more than you think

Twenty‑five years sounds like forever, but it isn’t. It’s the difference between being 30 and 55, or 40 and 65. Those years are going to pass no matter what. The question is whether each of those months brings you a step closer to financial independence, or just another oil change and insurance bill.

The power is compound growth. When your $1,000 goes into an investment account earning around 8 percent per year on average, your contributions start earning returns, then those returns start earning returns. Over time, your growth accelerates, especially in the later years.

That’s why the decision to drop an unnecessary car early in your financial life can be so powerful. The longer your money has to grow, the more dramatic the result.

Your mileage may vary

This millionaire math uses round numbers to make the point clear. Real life is messier.

The example assumes you save and invest $1,000 per month for 25 years at an 8 percent annual return and end up with around $946,000. With a few more years of investing, you would likely cross the $1 million mark.

You can also adjust the levers: maybe you can only free up $500 per month, or maybe you can redirect $1,500. Maybe your average return is 6 percent instead of 8, or you hit a long stretch of strong markets and do better. None of these inputs are guaranteed; they are tools to help you visualize what’s possible.

You might look at $12,000 per year and think, “I don’t spend that much on my car.” That could be true. But it could also be an underestimate. Many people only think about the payment and gas, and forget insurance, registration, maintenance, and repairs. On the other hand, you might be spending much more. In recent years, many buyers have taken on large loans at high interest rates, often on vehicles that depreciate faster than the loan balance is paid down. That leaves them “underwater,” owing more than the car is worth, and feeling stuck. In those cases, the true annual cost can be well above that $12,000 benchmark.

You might also be in a situation where you can’t offload a car easily. Maybe you need it for work. Maybe the resale value is too low compared with what you owe. Maybe your family’s logistics feel impossible with fewer vehicles. That is all real. But there is usually still room to move somewhere on the spectrum. You might not be able to sell a car today, but you might be able to:

  • Decide that your next car will be one you can afford in cash, not with a high‑interest loan
  • Refinance an expensive loan if possible
  • Drive less, combine trips, or carpool to reduce fuel and wear‑and‑tear
  • Use transit or biking for some trips and delay buying an additional vehicle
  • Set a firm cap on how much of your income will go to transportation

The point is not that every person should immediately dump a car and invest $1,000 a month. It is that cars are one of the biggest and most unexamined expenses in modern life, and we often underestimate how much they cost and how much wealth they displace.

So treat this article as a guide and a thought experiment, not a strict prescription. It is meant to highlight just how much money flows into vehicles, how strongly we are nudged to spend on them, and how powerful it can be if you create even partial alternatives. Whether that means going from three cars to two, stretching the life of a paid‑off car, avoiding a luxury upgrade, or planning to buy your next car in cash, small shifts away from automatic car spending can be surprisingly profitable over the long run.

How to know if an extra car is really “unnecessary”

Ask yourself:

Could we realistically coordinate schedules with one fewer car most days?

Are we keeping a vehicle mostly for rare situations (worst‑case scenarios vs daily needs)?

How many days per month does this car actually get used?

Would occasional rentals, rideshare, or car‑share be cheaper than owning this vehicle year‑round?

Can we move—or think differently about a future move already planned?

If a car is driven infrequently, mostly for convenience, or simply because “we’ve always had two cars,” that’s a signal. It may be less a tool and more a habit.

The mental shift: from car pride to good-decisions pride

Cars are visible status symbols. Investments are invisible. That makes it easy to prioritize the wrong thing.

When you reduce the number of cars you own, it might not show on Instagram. But it shows up quietly in your balance sheet.

Over years and decades, it can be the difference between consistently feeling stretched and building a substantial investment portfolio that supports you and your family

Think of every nonessential car payment as a missed investment deposit. When you flip that around, you’re not “giving up” a car. You’re buying long‑term freedom.

Twenty‑five years from now, you might look back at your old driveway and realize that the best “vehicle” you ever owned was not a car at all, but your investment account.

References

American Automobile Association (2023) tor. Your Driving Costs: How Much Are You Really Paying to Drive? https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/your-driving-costs

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024) tor. Consumer Expenditures in 2023. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm

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Wrap-up of COP30 in Belém: Developments and what’s next

The COP30 climate talks in Belém, Brazil closed with a familiar mixed message: the headline cover decision reaffirmed the 1.5°C limit and called for “transitions” in energy and economies, but stopped short of a clear, time‑bound fossil‑fuel phaseout and left finance and carbon‑market rules largely unresolved.

That gap between ambition and delivery is where the action now moves—to 2035 nationally-determined commitments (NDCs), to sector transitions guided by the IPCC, to health and wellbeing co‑benefits, and to cities, states, and service innovators who can make climate progress tangible.

Alignment with the IPCC’s “major transitions”

IPCC AR6 lays out the big shifts needed this decade. Power must decarbonize and end use must electrify. Industry needs efficiency and fuel switching. Transport and buildings require strong demand side changes. Land food and nature based solutions must expand. Finance and governance reforms must enable these changes in ways that are feasible and just.

On energy and fossil fuels, the cover decision invoked transitions and allowed for abatement and CCS, but it did not codify a universal fossil fuel phaseout. It reiterated scaling clean energy and efficiency consistent with IPCC least cost pathways, yet without stronger time bound collective targets. The net effect is a political signal to keep shifting capital while continued ambiguity risks a slower drawdown of coal oil and gas.

On 2035 NDCs, parties were urged to submit new economy wide targets aligned with 1.5°C. This matters because it sets a near term deadline for whole economy planning and, if done well, can drive integrated transitions across power transport buildings and industry rather than a set of siloed pledges.

On adaptation and resilience, negotiators advanced work on operationalizing the Global Goal on Adaptation with more clarity on indicators and reporting and less on quantified global targets. This helps countries design risk informed and locally appropriate transitions that remain robust under uncertainty.

On finance and feasibility, delivery pathways for climate finance still lag needs. Without clearer concessional flows and debt relief the feasibility dimension that combines institutions finance and capacity remains a bottleneck for many economies.

On process innovation, the Brazil Presidency draft Mutirão text was described in mid-COP briefings as a menu-based push on implementation. This signals a pivot from one-size-fits-all to practical options that countries can pick up. If carried into the 2035 NDC cycle, it could accelerate uptake of proven transition packages.

The bottom line on transitions is that COP30 nudged system wide planning with 2035 NDCs and adaptation metrics, but it left the core mitigation signal weaker than the IPCC call for rapid deep and sustained reductions. Delivery now hinges on national policy packages and real economy coalitions that move power transport buildings industry and land together.

Role of affordability, health, and other wellbeing

A notable advance at COP30 was the prominence of health and quality of life framing. The WHO Special Report Delivering the Belém Health Action Plan lays out a practical agenda to integrate health into climate action through climate resilient and low carbon health systems, cleaner air, heat health protection, and finance models that value health benefits.

In practice, more parties and partners signaled plans to embed health metrics in climate policy. They plan to track avoided deaths from cleaner air, reduced heat risk, and the resilience of clinics. This reframes climate policy as a public health dividend and not only an emissions ledger.

Demand-side measures for affordability and comfort gained attention. Efficient all-electric homes, passive and district cooling, and clean cooking can reduce bills, improve indoor air, and deliver thermal comfort, especially for low-income households.

Time saved and access also featured. Mobility investments that emphasize high frequency transit, safe walking and cycling, and integrated ticketing reduce commute times and improve access to jobs and services. These multiple benefits are often undervalued in cost benefit analysis.

This matters because policies that foreground lower energy poverty, better air, safer heat seasons, and shorter commutes tend to be more durable politically and faster to scale.

The Belém Health Action Plan offers a template that ministries can adopt now, with indicators that resonate beyond climate circles.

Subnational developments

The Presidency spotlighted cities, regions, tribal, and Indigenous governments as delivery agents. An official evening summary on November 11 emphasized how local and subnational leadership is driving real world climate progress in peoples homes.

Cities and states showcased local implementation plans that braid climate health and affordability goals. Examples include building performance standards, all electric codes for new buildings, rental retrofit programs, and cooling action plans.

They advanced fleet and infrastructure pivots such as zero emission buses, municipal fleets, freight corridors, and EV ready streetscapes, paired with reliability upgrades to distribution grids.

Nature and resilience programs featured urban tree canopies, blue green stormwater systems, fire smart land use, and nature based coastal buffers as no regrets moves that also improve daily life.

Finance innovation is helping smaller jurisdictions attract private capital while protecting low income households by packaging projects into standardized programs such as pay as you save retrofits, green mortgages, and resilience bonds.

This matters because subnational governments control many levers that shape user experience including permits codes service standards transit frequency and cooling centers. Their plans can translate COP speak into renovations routes and shade on the ground.

Focus on services to unite policy with user experience and value

One evolution at COP30 is the treatment of climate solutions as services and not only technologies. The focus is on meeting needs such as mobility, thermal comfort, cooling, clean cooking, and reliable power through integrated offers that align incentives from the start.

A services lens accelerates climate action in several ways. Clear value propositions help because people buy outcomes rather than kilowatt hours, for example mobility as a service that delivers fast reliable and safe trips, comfort as a service that delivers quiet healthy and stable indoor temperatures, and cooling as a service that guarantees performance without upfront cost.

Policy fit improves when service performance standards such as comfort hours trip times and air quality targets sit alongside emissions standards.

Public procurement can buy services for example contracted comfort for schools and hospitals instead of equipment, which enables aggregators to finance upgrades at scale.

Ownership of the user experience reduces friction when one accountable entity handles design delivery maintenance and billing, with bundles that include financing warranties and simple apps that make clean choices the easy default.

Equity by design becomes practical because services can embed affordability through lifeline tiers on bill tariffs and targeted subsidies that guarantee comfort and access for renters and low income households who are often locked out of capital intensive technology.

Data and verification also improve because service contracts create measurable outcomes such as comfort hours avoided outages and on time trips which can anchor results based finance and where appropriate high integrity carbon and health crediting.

Near‑term service plays to watch:

  • Thermal comfort services for social housing and schools, combining envelope, heat pumps, and ventilation with pay‑as‑you‑save tariffs.
  • Cooling‑as‑a‑service in hot cities, linked to heat‑health plans and time‑of‑use pricing.
  • Clean‑cooking service subscriptions that bundle stoves, fuel access, and maintenance.
  • Mobility subscriptions that integrate transit, bike/scooter share, and first/last‑mile shuttles.
  • Reliability‑as‑a‑service for critical facilities, pairing rooftop solar, storage, and microgrids under performance contracts.

Wrap-up

So, did COP30 move the needle? The signal is moderate because the cover text uses transitions language that keeps 1.5°C on the agenda but it avoided a clear fossil phaseout.

The structure is useful since 2035 NDC guidance, adaptation metrics work, and the Brazil Presidency’s menu style implementation push give countries and cities a clearer runway to act.

The substance is still to be delivered, and the most credible progress now lies in national policy packages, subnational implementation, and service based business models that foreground health, affordability, comfort, and time.

Looking ahead, watch for the first wave of 2035 NDCs and whether they are economy-wide, IPCC-aligned, and grounded in just locally led transitions.

Track how quickly countries operationalize the Belém Health Action Plan in budgets, clinics, heat health systems, and clean air rules.

See whether cities and states move building retrofits, cooling programs, and transit upgrades from pilots to standardized and financeable portfolios.

Monitor whether ministries, school districts, and utilities begin procuring outcomes such as comfort, reliability, and trips at scale.

References

UNFCCC (22 Nov 2025). Outcomes Report of the Global Climate Action Agenda at COP 30. UNFCCC. https://unfccc.int/documents/655037

COP30 Presidency (15 Nov 2025). COP30 Evening Summary – November 15. COP30 Presidency. https://cop30.br/en/news-about-cop30/cop30-evening-summary-november-15

European Parliament (17 Nov 2025). COP30 outcome: slow progress, but insufficient to meet the climate crisis urgency. European Parliament. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/fr/press-room/20251117IPR31438/cop30-outcome-slow-progress-but-insufficient-to-meet-climate-crisis-urgency

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The “cost of place:” Why housing and transportation are the same household bill

People tend to separate housing from transportation when they budget. From a savings standpoint, they are one decision about where you live and how you get around.

The cost of place is the combined monthly cost to keep a roof over your head and to reach work, school, groceries, friends, and care. Tools like the H+T Index were created to make that combined cost visible.

A lower rent or mortgage on the edge of town can raise the cost of place. Longer trips mean more fuel, more maintenance, higher insurance, more parking, and often one more car. A higher rent in a location efficient neighborhood can lower the cost of place if it lets you own fewer cars and make shorter trips.

A simple example is one household that pays $2,200 for rent and $150 for transit or occasional rides, compared with another that pays &1,700 for housing but $900 to $1,200 for two cars. The second household looks cheaper on paper until you add transportation.

What it means for households

Shop for the combined monthly number, not just the rent or mortgage. List expected car ownership and use, parking, insurance, fuel, maintenance, and any transit or rideshare spending.

Compare neighborhoods on that total. Test scenarios that trade one car for a monthly transit pass, carshare, or e bike.

Consider the value of time. Shorter trips and fewer car errands can free hours each week and lower stress.

When viewing homes, look for daily needs within a short walk or a single transit ride and ask about unbundled parking so you do not pay for spaces you do not use.

What it means for cities and policymakers

Cities can drive up the cost of place when land use rules push homes far from jobs and daily needs and when streets and parking policy make car travel the only viable option.

Minimum lot sizes, bans on apartments and missing middle housing, strict height caps, setbacks that force low density, and lengthy approval processes suppress homes in town where transportation costs are lower.

Parking minimums raise building costs and spread destinations apart.

Single-use zoning separates homes from shops and schools which lengthens trips and locks in car dependency.

Inadequate transit that fails to provide a realistically useful way to get around.

Street designs that prioritize fast through traffic over safe walking, biking, and transit add to those costs.

To lower the cost of place, allow more homes near jobs, schools, parks, and frequent transit.

Legalize duplexes, triplexes, courtyard apartments, and accessory dwelling units. M

Upzone near transit and main streets and permit mixed use buildings so errands are close. Replace parking minimums with context sensitive maximums, unbundle parking from rent, and price curb parking so spaces turn over.

Invest in reliable buses and trains, dedicated bus lanes, safe bike networks, and safer crossings so fewer households need multiple cars. Encourage transit oriented development on public and private land. Speed approvals for projects that add homes in location efficient areas.

Align school and public facility siting with walkable and transit served locations.

Use inclusionary tools and land value capture carefully so they add homes where access is best without stalling production.

Consider demand management like employer transit benefits and cash out for parking.

These actions reduce both the need to drive and the number of vehicles per household which lowers monthly costs.

Bottom line

The cheapest address is not always the most affordable once you add the cost to get around. Treat housing and transportation as one decision and aim for a lower cost of place.

References

Center for Neighborhood Technology (n.d.). H+T Affordability Index. Center for Neighborhood Technology. https://htaindex.cnt.org/
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Department of Transportation (n.d.). Location Affordability Index. HUD and DOT. https://www.locationaffordability.info/
AAA (2024). Your Driving Costs. AAA. https://newsroom.aaa.com/auto/your-driving-costs/
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024). Consumer Expenditures. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/cex/
Ewing, R., and Cervero, R. (2010). Travel and the Built Environment. Journal of the American Planning Association. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944361003766766
Litman, T. (2024). Transportation Affordability. Victoria Transport Policy Institute. https://www.vtpi.org/affordability.pdf
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2013). Location Efficiency and Housing Choice. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/location-efficiency-and-housing-choice
Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (2024). The State of the Nation’s Housing 2024. Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/research-areas/reports/state-nations-housing-2024

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Transportation needs a purpose—and that purpose should be about wellbeing

Transportation is full of surprises.

One of them: The whole enterprise is generally managed without a logical overall purpose.

It’s true there are lots of transportation metrics: Vehicle miles traveled (VMT), number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI), modeshare, and travel time, for starters.

But what is the problem transportation is supposed to be solving to begin with?

If you said something like “to get people where they need to go,” you’d have company. That’s a common response.

And the surface, it makes sense.

But consider this:

  • For the vast majority of cases, people don’t travel just to make the trip. They travel for another reason—they seek to reach or connect with something specific.
  • Most people spend a large amount of money and time on their travel because few people have access to options that compete with owning and driving long distances in a car. People with lower incomes pay the highest cost: They spend a higher share of their income on driving, which is often a real strain, and the burden falls most to people who can’t afford or find housing close to their daily destinations.
  • The placement of housing and key destinations like jobs, schools, and grocery stores doesn’t happen by luck. Public agencies govern what is allowed to be located where And they govern the allocation of rights, privileges, and funding among different ways people get around.

And so back in reality, thinking about the purpose of transportation as moving vehicles (principally treating cars) for the sake of moving vehicles is actually circular.

It is therefore not surprising that the transportation system, despite 100+ years of development of the car, is making us steadily poorer, sicker, and more divided, it’s one of the most likely things to kill us, and it is one of the top sources of our climate crisis.

To get our arms around the the metrics we care about, and more important, to make transportation work for us, it would help to give the system a more unified logical purpose—and one that is focused on providing measurable human benefit and doing so efficiently.

There are contenders—like access (or access to opportunity) and a subset of that, 15-minute neighborhoods.

But there is so much to do to refine and integrate those and related concepts into policy.

Cities, counties, states, and other jurisdictions who are in a position to update big-picture plans and policies could find big opportunities in this realm.

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Key climate solutions for communities

To unlock new climate progress, apply the power of local communities. Communities are key to most of the climate action needed as well as types of action that can make daily life safer, healthier, and more affordable for everyone.

What follows is a list of community‑oriented solutions that:

  • Are key areas of climate action overall;
  • Offer some of the most effective climate opportunities for communities;
  • Fall within local authority and influence, representing unique power by communities; and
  • Advance equity and public wellbeing, which can lead the way to support for doing more.

Estimates reflect typical North American urban conditions and results vary by context.

#1. Make it legal and attractive to put housing near destinations, and amenities near homes: Reform zoning for more homes in job‑ and transit‑rich areas, permit “missing middle” housing and accessory units, reduce minimum parking, enable small mixed‑use corner stores, clinics, and childcare, and streamline approvals for affordability and inclusion. 

Infill homes lower household VMT 20–40% versus sprawl; shifting 10–20% of growth to infill can cut regional on‑road emissions ~2–6% over a decade, while multifamily/attached homes use 10–30% less energy per unit. If 40%+ of new housing is transit‑oriented, metro transport emissions can fall 10–20% by 2040, with shorter trips, lower costs, and inclusionary policies reducing displacement pressures.

#2. Neutralize the threat of being killed or seriously injured by a driver: Design streets to self‑enforce safe speeds, build connected, protected bike networks, daylight intersections, prioritize pedestrians at crossings, and target high‑injury corridors with data‑driven design, paired with fair enforcement and universal access to safe mobility. 

Such programs typically cut VMT 3–10% citywide within 5–10 years (about 2–8% on‑road CO2e, or 1–4% of total community emissions), with sustained mode shift reducing per‑capita transport emissions 20–50% over 10–20 years. Fewer severe crashes, reliable low‑cost mobility during fuel price spikes or outages, and better access to jobs and services especially benefit low‑income residents, youth, seniors, and people with disabilities.

#3. Deliver high‑quality walking, bicycling, and public transit for everyone: Build safe, direct bike routes and frequent, reliable transit with all‑door boarding, bus lanes, and integrated fares, and complete trips with wayfinding, lighting, benches, shade, and safe crossings. Network upgrades and service improvements reduce corridor VMT 5–15% and citywide 3–10%, and over time enable car‑light lifestyles that can halve household transport emissions. Redundant, multimodal networks also keep people moving during storms and outages while cutting mobility costs and improving access to essentials.

#4. Create abundant places to meet, interact, and belong outside of commerce: Invest in parks, plazas, libraries, greenways, and car‑free streets with free programming, designed for comfort—trees, water, seating, restrooms—and cultural expression. 

Nearby amenities reduce short car trips (often 0.5–2% VMT citywide) and shaded, tree‑rich public spaces lower cooling demand for adjacent buildings. Social infrastructure strengthens mutual aid, and shade and cooling reduce heat risk while free programming expands wellbeing without raising household costs.

#5. Restore and steward nature in the city with climate‑resilient landscaping and urban forestry:  Install bioswales, rain gardens, permeable pavements, and green roofs; landscape with native, drought‑tolerant species; expand and equitably distribute tree canopy; and restore wetlands, riparian corridors, dunes, and living shorelines. 

Shade and evapotranspiration cut cooling loads 5–30% for shaded buildings (roughly 0.05–0.3 tCO2e per home per year), while each new street tree sequesters 10–25 kg CO2 annually; 100,000 trees store 1–2.5 ktCO2e per year and avoid more via energy savings. Citywide canopy gains of 10 percentage points can reduce peak electricity demand 2–5%, while bioswales and rain gardens reduce flooding and heat in historically underserved neighborhoods.

#6. Grow local, plant‑rich food for health, climate, and resilience: Support community gardens, urban farms, edible landscaping, school gardens, greenhouses and rooftop farms; expand farmers markets and CSAs with SNAP matching; prioritize culturally appropriate crops and cut food waste. 

Plant‑rich diets reduce 0.5–1.6 tCO2e per person per year, while shorter cold chains for local produce trim 10–50 kg per person annually and compost‑amended soils store additional carbon. These measures increase food security, lower food bills, build community cohesion, and create local jobs and skills.

#7. Turn waste into soil with municipal composting: Provide universal organics collection (including multifamily) and business service, convenient drop‑offs, clear bin standards, and edible food recovery, and apply finished compost in parks, street trees, and urban agriculture. 

Diverting 1 t of food scraps from landfill avoids 0.2–0.6 tCO2e; with 75% diversion, communities avoid 20–80 kg CO2e per person annually, and compost use adds soil carbon and displaces synthetic fertilizer, totaling 40–120 kg per person per year. Programs create local jobs, improve soils that retain water, support urban food, and reduce odors and pests near facilities often sited in low‑income areas.

#8. Create systems for water conservation and efficiency: Offer instant‑rebate upgrades for high‑efficiency fixtures and appliances, smart irrigation, and turf replacement with climate‑appropriate landscaping; deploy smart meters with leak alerts; promote rainwater harvesting and safe graywater reuse; and set fair, affordability‑protected rates. 

Hot‑water efficiency (fixtures plus heat‑pump water heaters) lowers 0.6–1.8 tCO2e per home per year, while outdoor water efficiency and smart irrigation save 50–200 kg per home via the water‑energy nexus; utility‑scale leak detection and efficiency can cut water‑system electricity use 10–30%. The result is lower bills, improved drought resilience, reduced shutoff risk, and cooler neighborhoods where turf gives way to drought‑tolerant landscapes.

#9. Make buildings efficient and electric: Require and finance tight envelopes, passive cooling (shade, ventilation), and all‑electric systems; add rooftop solar and vehicle‑to‑home readiness; and harden for heat, smoke, fires, and floods. 

Typical retrofits and heat pumps save 1–3 tCO2e per home per year, heat‑pump water heaters 0.5–1.5 t, and induction 0.1–0.3 t; retrofitting 2–3% of stock annually cuts building emissions 3–7% in five years, and with grid decarbonization achieves 60–90% cuts by 2040–2050. Efficient envelopes keep homes habitable during outages, indoor air is healthier without combustion, and targeted no‑cost programs reduce energy poverty.

#10. Make electrification available for virtually everything—and beneficial to users: Provide simple, up‑front rebates for heat pumps, induction, electric water heaters, cars, e‑bikes, and chargers; implement equitable rates, managed charging, and community solar; and invest in workforce training and local contractors. 

Accelerated adoption increases cumulative 2030 reductions 10–30% versus slow rollout; each e‑bike that replaces car trips avoids ~0.3–1 tCO2e per year, and each home fuel‑switch avoids 1–3 tCO2e annually. Lower operating costs and cleaner air accrue broadly when access programs ensure renters and low‑income households benefit first.

#11. Build shared, neighborhood‑scale clean energy and resilience: Create resilience centers with solar, batteries, clean‑air rooms, and cooling/warming, link buildings via microgrids, deploy district geothermal/geoexchange networks, organize block commitments to decommission gas laterals and upgrade electrical capacity, and add curbside and hub EV charging. 

District geothermal cuts heating/cooling energy 30–60% and GHGs 40–80% today; microgrids with solar+storage reduce feeder peaks and displace diesel backup (1–3% local electricity emissions), and coordinated gas retirement plus electrification can eliminate 10–20% of total city emissions from building combustion and leakage over two decades. Shared systems keep critical services powered, lower costs for renters and small businesses, and should be prioritized in frontline neighborhoods.

#12. Keep people collectively safe from disasters, shocks, and stressors: Combine nature‑based defenses (trees, wetlands, dunes) with modern standards (cool roofs, updated codes, elevation, floodable parks), add resilient hubs, cooling centers, and clear risk communication, and plan jointly for heat, smoke, floods, and outages. 

These measures safeguard crucial clean energy and other assets that reduce emissions, contribute to a faster adoption of such systems and reduce the likelihood of maladaptations such as increased use of diesel generators, and prevent high‑emission disaster recovery and support reliable operation of clean energy systems. Clean air and cooling access, language‑inclusive alerts, and social infrastructure protect those most exposed.

#13. Tamp down air pollution across its many sources. Tackle tailpipes and smokestacks together with land use, travel‑demand fixes, and clean technology: legalize compact, mixed‑use infill near jobs and transit and pair it with transportation demand management (congestion and curb pricing, employer commute benefits, school travel plans, demand‑based parking, delivery consolidation) to shorten trips, cut VMT and idling, and curb non‑exhaust PM. Accelerate zero‑emission cars, buses, and trucks; electrify buildings; restrict the dirtiest vehicles in dense areas; and expand urban forests and cool corridors. Focus on ports, freight corridors, and overburdened neighborhoods with shore power, yard‑equipment electrification, clean‑truck rules, and fenceline monitoring. Drive down PM2.5 (including diesel black carbon and brake/tire/road dust), PM10, NOx, SO2, VOCs and air toxics (e.g., benzene, formaldehyde, 1,3‑butadiene), carbon monoxide, and methane leaks that fuel ozone—verified with continuous monitoring and transparent public reporting.

Greenhouse‑gas benefits start with light‑duty vehicles: citywide VMT reduction of 3–10% from compact development and TDM typically yields ~2–8% on‑road CO2e cuts in 5–10 years; sustained mode shift to walking, biking, and transit can lower per‑capita transport emissions 20–50% over 10–20 years; and rapid LDV electrification adds 60–90% per‑mile CO2e reductions as grids decarbonize, with each e‑bike that replaces car trips avoiding ~0.3–1 tCO2e per year. Building electrification removes on‑site combustion; each e‑bus avoids ~50–80 tCO2e annually; and medium/heavy‑duty truck electrification cuts 60–95% per‑mile CO2e, while area‑focused clean‑air zones deliver additional, localized multi‑percent transport‑sector cuts. Health gains are largest for residents near ports, warehouses, and arterials, and fewer combustion appliances indoors reduce asthma triggers.

#14. Invest in public infrastructure efficiently and price disproportionate impacts fairly: Use lifecycle cost and carbon accounting, standardized designs, open data, and fair user fees such as weight‑ and distance‑based road charges, curb and congestion pricing, demand‑based parking, and stormwater fees tied to impervious areas, all with protections for low‑income users. 

Congestion and curb pricing reduce VMT 10–20% in priced zones and 2–5% citywide, demand‑based parking trims 2–4%, and stable revenue enables sustained transit and active‑mode expansion that underpins 10–20% transport‑sector cuts over time. Pairing pricing with income‑based discounts and reinvestment delivers fairer outcomes and lowers long‑run costs.

#15. Save money and materials with sharing and lending: Launch tool, toy, sports‑gear, and baby‑gear libraries; repair cafes and fix‑it clinics; clothing swaps and reuse marketplaces; and shared equipment for schools and small businesses, in partnership with public libraries for memberships and reservations. 

Avoided production dominates the climate benefit—sharing a handful of seldom‑used items can avert 50–200 kg CO2e per person per year, with mature programs achieving 0.1–1% community‑wide cuts and broader normalization of reuse delivering 2–5% consumption‑based reductions by 2035. These programs provide low‑cost access to essentials and skills and build social networks that matter in emergencies.

#16. Offer local services and experiences as affordable alternatives to high consumption:  Invest in arts and culture passes, maker spaces, community kitchens, skill‑shares, recreation, local tourism, and nature access, and support small businesses that provide repair, care, wellness, and learning, using vouchers and memberships to ensure inclusion. 

Shifting 5% of household spend from goods to low‑carbon services and experiences reduces ~0.2–0.8 tCO2e per household per year, with scaled programs cutting community consumption‑based emissions 1–3% over time. The result is more wellbeing per dollar, local jobs and skills, and inclusive access to community life.

#17. Organize public decision‑making around measurable collective wellbeing: 

Use participatory budgeting, citizens’ assemblies, language access, evidence‑based pilots and A/B tests, transparent dashboards, and delivery‑focused timelines that give frontline communities real power, not just voice. 

Faster, smarter adoption increases cumulative reductions—programs that double deployment rates can boost 2030 impact 10–30% versus business‑as‑usual rollout—while policies reflecting lived experience deliver fairer, more durable outcomes.

#18. Make large‑scale change possible and practical: Build project pipelines and pattern books, pre‑approve typical designs, procure at scale, train a climate‑ready workforce, and start with quick‑build projects that become permanent as data show benefits.

Standardization and bulk buys lower costs and speed deployment across sectors, compounding reductions, while predictable pipelines create local careers and let small and minority‑owned firms compete and thrive.

Putting it all together

Communities that pursue these strategies in parallel can plausibly cut total emissions 35–60% by 2035 (from a 2020s baseline) while reducing heat and flood risk, improving air quality, lowering household bills, and creating good local jobs. The fastest paths pair demand reduction (land use, mobility, efficiency), rapid electrification, neighborhood‑scale clean energy, water and materials stewardship, and joyful, lower‑consumption ways of living—implemented through equitable programs that prioritize those with the greatest energy and health burdens.

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To advance climate and wellbeing solutions together, start with urbanism

If wellbeing-centered climate action makes change real by improving daily life—lower bills, cleaner air, safer streets, comfortable homes, access to parks—urbanism is how to deliver it at scale.

Urbanism is the practice of shaping how towns and cities function and evolve: the land uses, buildings, streets, parks, and services that set our social, cultural, and economic possibilities. Start there, and the climate-and-wellbeing agenda moves from abstract targets to concrete, durable gains.

Why urbanism is the natural home for wellbeing-centered climate action

Urbanism sets the stage for demand. Urban form determines trip lengths and modes, building energy use, and how much infrastructure we need—making it the lever that shapes emissions before any technology choice. Research led by Felix Creutzig shows demand-side measures in mobility, buildings, and materials could cut global emissions 40–70% by mid-century, while improving health, affordability, and comfort.

It stacks co-benefits. Streets that are safe for walking and biking cut emissions and cardio‑metabolic disease; trees and cool roofs reduce heat deaths and energy bills; mixed-use, transit-rich neighborhoods lower costs of living and stress.

It builds political durability. People defend improvements they feel on their block—safer crossings, reliable buses, quieter air, better housing. Those benefits create enduring constituencies that stabilize climate action over time.

Translating the wellbeing lens into urban moves (Avoid–Shift–Improve)

Avoid: Bring daily needs closer. Enable 15-minute neighborhoods with gentle density, mixed use, and complete neighborhoods near transit. Encourage telepresence where it saves time without sacrificing service quality.

Shift: Make better options the easy default. Frequent, reliable transit; safe, connected walking and biking networks; shared mobility; healthier, more plant-forward food environments; zero-emission delivery zones and cargo bikes for the last mile.

Improve: Upgrade what remains. High-performance, electrified buildings; district energy where it pencils; efficient, electric buses and freight; smart, flexible demand and storage that lower bills and ease grid integration.

Urbanism as a platform for co‑investment

Wellbeing initiatives attract partners beyond climate budgets. Health systems, housing agencies, utilities, insurers, school districts, and employers all benefit and can co-fund:

Heat-health + housing: Targeted tree canopy, cool surfaces, and weatherization in heat‑vulnerable neighborhoods.

Movement + air: Bus-priority lanes, safe routes to school, e‑bike libraries, and port electrification to cut NOx/PM and asthma.

Comfort + cost: Block-by-block retrofits of social and rental housing with concierge delivery to reduce bills and improve indoor air.

Multiplying clean energy possibilities

Efficiency-first urbanism shrinks the loads we must electrify and the grids we must build.

Compact, well‑insulated buildings and shorter trips mean:

Faster, cheaper electrification (smaller systems, fewer upgrades).

More reliable grids (flexible buildings, managed EV charging, district thermal storage).

Fewer stranded assets and lower total system cost.

Holistic and just by design

Urbanism integrates mitigation, adaptation, equity, and justice:

Target investments to communities most burdened by heat, pollution, and high energy costs.

Pair upgrades with anti-displacement policies, tenant protections, and community ownership (e.g., shared solar, resilience hubs in libraries and schools).

Use nature-based solutions—trees, bioswales, daylighted streams—to manage heat and floods while enhancing neighborhood wellbeing.

Faster adoption through visible, local wins

Lead with projects people can touch and feel within months:

Tactical traffic calming and protected bike lanes that become permanent.

All-door boarding and bus lanes that cut travel times immediately.

Simplified home upgrade pathways with one-stop shops and “pay on bill.”

Neighborhood microgrids or batteries that keep critical services running during outages.

Governance and finance that unlock the flywheel

Update the rules of place: zoning reform for mixed-use and modest density near transit; parking reform; complete streets; transportation demand management.
Set performance expectations: building performance standards, zero‑emission area pilots, heat-resilient design.

Align prices with outcomes: congestion and curb pricing tied to better transit; utility rates that reward efficiency and flexibility; meter parking to fund local streetscape upgrades.

Braid funding: combine climate, health, housing, resilience, workforce, and private capital; track and reinvest savings into equity.

A starter playbook for cities and regions

Diagnose: map 15‑minute access, heat and flood risk, air pollution hotspots, energy burden, crash risk, and transit gaps.

Recode space: legalize missing‑middle housing and mixed use near frequent transit; require active ground floors and shade.

Rewire streets: build connected bike/scooter networks, bus‑priority corridors, safer crossings, and calm speeds to 20–25 mph on neighborhood streets.

Refit buildings: run block‑by‑block electrification and weatherization campaigns, focusing first on low‑income housing; add heat pumps, induction, and ventilation.

Regreen neighborhoods: expand tree canopy, cool roofs/pavements, rain gardens, and accessible parks within a 10‑minute walk.

Rebalance logistics: establish zero‑emission delivery zones; enable urban consolidation centers and cargo bikes.

Resilience hubs: equip community facilities with solar + storage, cooling, air filtration, and communications.

Reprice and reinvest: reform parking and road pricing; use proceeds to improve transit, sidewalks, and affordability.

How this connects the dots

The wellbeing lens (from the previous piece) tells us what to maximize: health, affordability, comfort, time, and resilience—while cutting emissions.

Urbanism (as outlined in “What urbanism is and what it can do”) gives us the levers to deliver those outcomes: land use, buildings, mobility, parks, water, and waste.

Together, they form a practical strategy: change the rules and design of places to make low‑carbon living the easiest, healthiest, and cheapest choice.

Start with urbanism, and the benefits show up on the street, in homes, at schools, and in monthly bills. That’s how climate action becomes a daily improvement people can feel—and a transformation they’ll champion for the long haul.

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The future of climate solutions is in wellbeing initiatives

Shifting how we move, heat, cool, and consume can deliver large emissions cuts while improving quality of life. Conversely, initiatives to make people’s lives tangibly better, right now. Is a fast route to durable, scalable climate action.

When we organize strategies around human wellbeing, we unlock faster adoption, broader coalitions, and better economics than a technology-first, supply-only approach. Below are eight ways a wellbeing lens adds speed and staying power to the climate transition, with supporting research—especially from Felix Creutzig and colleagues—on how demand-side solutions can deliver large, near-term, cost-effective gains.

Wellbeing initiatives that advance climate action are policies, programs, services, and designs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by directly improving daily life—lower energy bills, healthier air and food, safer and more convenient mobility, more comfortable homes and workplaces, and greater resilience. These initiatives emphasize demand-side solutions, urban form and services, and social practices; they are measured in tons of CO2 and also in human outcomes like health, affordability, and time saved.

1. Cost-effective, concrete results

A wellbeing-first focus prioritizes demand-side solutions—efficient buildings and appliances, mobility choices, circular material use, service redesign—that deliver measurable savings and emissions cuts at low or even negative cost. The IPCC catalogs dozens of such options with substantial, low-cost potential. Creutzig and co-authors show that demand-side measures could cut global emissions by 40–70% by mid-century, much of it consistent with better health, comfort, and affordability. Doing the cheapest tonnes first lowers costs, allow ms greater results for the resources invested, and frees up capital to scale clean supply.

2. Engine of co-investment

Wellbeing initiatives come bundled with co-benefits—lower energy bills, cleaner air, comfort, productivity, and resilience. Those benefits attract partners (health systems, housing agencies, insurers, employers, schools) who are motivated to co-invest, multiplying funding streams and impact. Dietary shifts and active mobility, for instance, improve health while cutting emissions—making them strong candidates for braided funding across climate, public health, and transportation.

3. Prospects for adoption and political durability

People adopt—and defend—changes that deliver direct, felt benefits. Programs built around comfort, convenience, savings, and health spread faster via social proof and are more resilient to political swings because beneficiaries become an enduring constituency. Default options, concierge-style delivery, and trusted messengers increase uptake, while visible local improvements create reinforcing policy feedbacks over time.

4. Multiplication of the possibilities (efficiency first + “ASI”)

A wellbeing lens emphasizes resource productivity—doing more with less—consistent with the Avoid–Shift–Improve (ASI) framework. Avoid unnecessary demand (e.g., better urban design, telepresence), shift to better modes and services (public transit, shared and active mobility, healthier diets), and improve the remaining demand with best-available tech (high-efficiency electrification). The research shows that when we start with demand-side measures, we shrink the loads that must be electrified, making grids and clean generation smaller, cheaper, and faster to build—amplifying the impact of every supply-side dollar. When people experience gains that help them personally, they are likely to spread the word and support policies and investments for more, effecting a virtuous cycle.

5. An overdue new holistic approach

Modern science calls for integrating mitigation, adaptation, equity, and justice. Wellbeing provides a practical organizing principle: prioritize measures that cut emissions while improving health, safety, affordability, and resilience, especially for those most at risk. This lens operationalizes climate‑resilient development and surfaces place-based, community-led solutions that standard, tech-first rollouts can miss.

6. Effectiveness through needs orientation

Centering users’ needs and experiences—rather than technologies—builds offerings people love to adopt and stick with. Human-centered design, behavioral insights, and service redesign (e.g., home energy upgrades delivered as a simple, trusted service) raise performance and equity. Iteration from real user feedback drives continuous improvement and cost declines.

7. Long-term orientation and aligned incentives

By rooting action in fundamental human needs—health, shelter, mobility, dignity—we plan transitions that last. A wellbeing lens also clarifies where policy must realign incentives (pricing pollution, rewarding efficiency-as-a-service and demand flexibility, valuing resilience and health outcomes) so business models compete on true, societal cost. Credible long-term roadmaps emerge when they’re matched to people’s lived needs and budgets.

8) Culture and consciousness
Wellbeing provides a shared language—clean air, comfort, pride in place—that resonates across ideologies. When people experience benefits personally and locally, climate action becomes a cultural project, not a partisan one. That invites broader participation and can trigger positive social tipping dynamics, accelerating change.

Putting it all together

Start where people feel it: target programs that cut bills, improve health and comfort, and simplify daily life.

Make “efficiency first” the design rule to shrink the problem, then electrify and clean the supply truly needed.

Fund through co-benefits: braid health, housing, resilience, workforce, and climate dollars.

Design for adoption: defaults, concierge-style delivery, trusted local partners, and continuous user feedback.

Align incentives: price pollution, reward performance, and measure health and equity outcomes, not just megawatts.

A wellbeing-centered approach can complement supply-focused pathways to deliver high mitigation per dollar today, build broad and more durable coalitions, and clear the runway for clean technologies to scale faster and cheaper. The result can be not only a safer climate but also healthier, more prosperous communities—now and for the long term.

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Primer on access

In transportation and land use planning, access or accessibility is the ability for people to reach goods, services, and activities.

Another way to define access is people’s ability to meet opportunities, where opportunities are groceries, employment, education, healthcare, and other things they need and value.

A key component of access is mobility, the ability to move through physical space. Mobility is a means to access, but generally not a useful end itself. 

The words “access” and “accessibility” have other uses that are related but different. For example, in the context of people with disabilities, accessibility can refer to equity in mobility. 

Accessibility is also an important part of equity on general. Access in equity can refer to ensuring communities who have suffered and continue to suffer from historical injustices and exclusions now have what they need for well-being, including physical safety, nutrition, health, education, finance, and economic opportunities.

Access is fundamental to climate-resilient development and GHG mitigation.

Measurement

One of the contributions of the concept of access is that it provides a way to quantify the extent to which people can get what they need, and by extension, community health, well-being, and other public outcomes policymakers wish to pursue.

One way to provide access is reachability, or the capacity to physically reach opportunities. Reachability is comprised of the following:

#1. PROXIMITY: Physical distance between origins and destinations. The mix and breath of locations of key opportunities relative to people who need them. Proximity can be measured as the average time to reach one or a basket of key locations by a targeted or wider number of the population.

#2. MOBILITY: Ease or comfort of physical movement along a network. Metrics for mobility are well-established and include average travel speed and auto travel time abstracted from the impact of decisions on other travel modes. Here is a short talk by Jonathan Levine on conventional mobility measures and why they work when properly applied, but also lead us in wrong direction if we try to maximize for them without an organizing goal of accessibility.

#3 FREEDOM FROM BARRIERS: Removal of  impediments to using transport options. This includes affordability, safety, comfort, and other qualities that arise in different settings and with people’s needs. 

Another solution to access is connectivity, which means things coming to you. Connectivity could be for physical goods like water and delivery packages. It could also be digital resources like computing and communications which can (but doesn’t necessarily) provide cost-effective substitutes for physical travel. Connectivity could also be for fire and other emergency services.

In sum, access gives a way to measure meaningful outcomes and internal dynamics in a way that generally is currently lacking in transportation, land use, and related planning.

Practical Use

The idea of access as an integrated transportation and land use strategy brings some advantages. However it is not yet widely used by local governments, a fact that is explained partly by decades of auto-centric decisions in multiple levels of government that has created inertia.

Yet, access as a concept is available for local governments to use—and indeed, offers a way to leadership and innovation that could be valuable.

Some things the concept of access could do for a local government:

  • Create a unified way to measure, manage, and optimize resources across multiple modes and investments towards human-centered outcomes
  • Bring together various existing policy issues (e.g. commute times to work, availability of low-stress bikeways, wheelchair access, etc) into a single rubric.
  • Establish a focal point to integrate planning activities that are currently diffused and disparate (e.g., parking policy and TDM proposals), creating the potential for a more powerful and deliberate way to coordinate investments 
  • Provide a new way to evaluate equity with a higher degree of discernment and control in managing initiatives aimed to increase well-being in targeted populations.

In conclusion, access provides a way to understand and integrate the management of transportation and lanes use across modes and in urban, suburban, and rural environments.

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To live better and secure crucial climate action, deliver tested wellbeing solutions

It’s within reach to live well and secure crucial climate action—making both happen is a matter of delivering tested solutions to improve collective wellbeing.

Here are some of the top such wellbeing solutions according to evidence:

Choices

Develop economic choices that allow people to make ends meet and live the life they want. Deliver choices by creating affordable and enriching options to help people in a wide range of ages, abilities, wealth/incomes, and backgrounds to meet their basic needs through:

  • Housing, especially infill middle housing;
  • Transportation, especially walkability, bikeability, and rich transit;
  • Food, especially nutritious plant-rich food; and
  • Energy, especially innovations in efficiency combined with beneficial electrification.

Delivering choices is associated with “demand-side” climate solutions, representing 40–70% of potential greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. This category also contains some of the most cost-effective measures to reduce emissions that have been studied, which means they save energy and money that can be reinvested and multiply results.

Delivering choices also boosts self-reliance and flexibility to help people have the best chance of being ready for life-changing disasters that are becoming more common, asd well as to cope with the shocks, shifts, and uncertainties of climate change more generally.

Clean air

Keep outdoor and indoor air clean and safe to breathe, especially by curbing air pollution impacting children and other sensitive and vulnerable populations. Deliver clean air through:

  • Transition of mobile and fixed sources of energy systems to being renewably-powered and electrified;
  • Reduction of system-wide energy use through demand management and compact-oriented land use strategies; and
  • Development of strong industrial controls.

Delivering clean air is a powerful way to reduce GHG emissions, since more than 75% of these emissions come from fossil fuels that cause regional, local, and indoor air pollution. Air pollution and GHG emissions also come from livestock, fertilizers, land clearing, and industrial processes.

Delivering clean air is also important for adapting to climate change because air pollution is more dangerous during heatwaves, wildfire smoke can be transported over long distances, and air pollution is particularly harmful for people who are already vulnerable.

Community cohesion

Develop community infrastructure and services to support strong social connections, where children, seniors and people with disabilities can travel independently, people with different racial, economic, and other backgrounds are integrated, and communities can efficiently and effectively solve collective problems together. Deliver community cohesion through:1

  • Creation of compact, mixed-use design with urban forestry and urban villages where commonly used services are accessible without driving;
  • Great conditions for walking and bicycling, as part of which, vehicle speeds are overall slow (e.g., under 20 mph on local streets and less than 30 mph on urban arterials), parking capacity and subsidies are minimal;
  • Streets, parks, other public facilities, and local public schools are widely attractive; and
  • Shared resources to efficiently and effectively manage environmental challenges, including natural infrastructure and cooling centers and knowledge-sharing about changes under way and resources to help people and neighborhoods adapt.

Delivering community cohesion enables large-scale GHG reduction because it comes through designing communities to be transformationally more resource-efficient, in part by reducing the extraordinarily energy-intense process of urban sprawl, and it multiplies the possibilities of the solutions mentioned in the previous two sections.  Related movements include Smart Growth and New Urbanism.

Delivering community cohesion is important for adapting to climate change for similar reasons: It allows local governments to accomplish more with less, and it leads to neighbors being more responsive in crises–which, with climate change, often occur at the scale of communities. It also makes local governments more flexible, able to create more shared infrastructure for shared problems, and more likely to provide safety nets when needed and preventatively address root causes

Responsive government 

Dedicate government, especially local government, to provide outcome-driven wellbeing for everyone in the most efficient way, dynamically and accountably. Deliver responsive government through the following:

  • Realizing full, representative participation in voting, civic life, and other influential decision-making processes, especially for marginalized groups;
  • Managing for all ages, abilities, and backgrounds, for today and tomorrow; 
  • Commitments to using resources productive by dedicating to using best, modern practices, knowing what those are, creating space for organized innovation, and delivering services effectively; and
  • Establishing the capacity to change, or the resources, knowledge, and willingness to conduct change management—and use it.

Delivering responsive government is foundational to reducing GHG emissions because most of the transitions involved require structural changes led through public policy, and there exists extraordinary inertia that makes the existing ways of doing things–including the processes that have led to climate pollution in the first place–stable and difficult to change. The climate challenge also demands greater participation and coalition building that in turn requires a strong hand and effective participatory processes that governments are best suited to provide. And the work to be done requires acting out of comfort zones, including in terms of pace, so responsiveness is needed to create accountability to deliver on outcomes in practice.

Delivering responsive government is needed for adaptation for similar reasons, and furthermore to stay on guard as the planet changes and to respond accordingly, to change practices and strategies, to inform and educate the public about those changes and responses, to monitor and address maladaptations, and to assert collective approaches when needed.

References

1 https://www.vtpi.org/cohesion.pdf

See also the Moreworks bibliography

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It’s reasonable to expect to live well

With the high level of technology and financial resources of the United States, we can and should expect our citizens–all of us–to have what we need to thrive.

That means people of all ages, abilities, wealth/incomes, and backgrounds should have the conditions to achieve liberty, security, and good health.

Liberty   

Everyone should have the ability to live as they want and pursue fulfillment. That includes: 

  1. Right to shape government and full and equal access to public services;
  2. Ability to choose one’s way of life, follow one’s dreams, and have individual control of decision making;
  3. Freedom to move where and as one wants;
  4. Freedom from violence and other unjust harm (a.k.a. “security of person”); and
  5. Access to buildings, products/services, and environments that are universally accessible (a.k.a. “universal design”).

Security 

Everyone should be able to build financial and other resources and expect their future is reasonably safe from shocks that threaten their way of life. That includes: 

  1. Ability to build durable wealth and a rewarding career; 
  2. Ability to prepare for disasters and dangers while keeping valuables safe;
  3. Ability to build and maintain close family and community networks, including physically-near intergenerational living arrangements; and
  4. Reasonable assistance and protections against significant stressors and setbacks, including around the events of having children, aging, and dealing with unexpected challenges such as costly health problems, loss of a job, and loss of one’s home.  

Good health

Everyone should be able to live a physiologically-full life free of unnecessary dangers and stressors, fully benefiting from the advances in modern public health and medicine. That includes: 

  1. Ability to access safe shelter allowing adequate sleep and rest;
  2. Ability to have healthy natural movement in their daily life; 
  3. Freedom from exposure to unnecessary dangers resulting from public planning and policy, including toxic pollutants and violence from structural design;
  4. Ability to have affordable good nutrition; 
  5. Ability to physically access settings to experience connections with other people, build relationships, and achieve belonging; and
  6. Ability to access affordable high-quality preventive and treatment services to maintain and improve physical, behavioral, and emotional health, including for those in crisis.

In sum, we can and should hold policymaking and other development accountable to providing the conditions for liberty, security, and good health.

References

1 https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

See also the Moreworks bibliography

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To secure crucial climate action, focus on resilience

What is climate action?

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the most widely-accepted international scientific body on climate change, when we think about climate action, we should think climate-resilient development.1

Climate-resilient development means deeply reducing greenhouse gas emissions (“mitigation”) while dealing with the changing climate already coming at us (“adaptation”) and doing both in a way that supports sustainable development for everyone.

Mitigation

Mitigationmeans reducing greenhouse gas emissions.2 The magnitude of reduction needed is associated with limiting global warming by as close as possible to 1.5C (2.7F) degrees. Overall that means reducing half of global emissions from the period of 2023 (IPCC’s most recent major update) by 2030.

The US’ likely best ways to support that transition, as evaluated in 2024 by the Biden adminstration, are to (1) decarbonize the energy sector (focusing on cutting energy waste; shifting to carbon pollution-free electricity; electrifying and driving efficiency in vehicles, buildings, and parts of industry), (2) reduce emissions from forests and agriculture and enhancing carbon sinks, and (3) reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gases including methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and other potent short-lived climate pollutants.

For the US to carry its fair share, it needs reduce its emissions by about half from 2024 to 2030, or about 6,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (MtCO2e), according to Climate Action Tracker, which monitors and evaluates countries’ commitments.

The US’ actual commitment as of November 2024 (per its nationally-determined contribution submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) was about 22-28% for the period of 2024 to 2030. 3

Adaptation

Adaptationmeans adapting to the changes underway. It also specifically means avoiding maladaptation, or in other words, responses that worsen existing inequities, especially for Indigenous Peoples and marginalized groups, or that hurt ecosystem and biodiversity resilience.

Adaptation is a process that can take place over the range of multiple timescales, from nearer term to longer term, and really any physical level, from the whole human civilization on down.

Sustainable development for everyone

Sustainable development for everyone means centering justice, equity, and inclusion in investments and other commitments in order to avoid perpetuating historical and ongoing injustices, inequities, exclusions, and that reconcile divergent interests, values and worldviews toward equitable and just outcomes for all.

Sustainable development for everyone specifically involves building a just transition, or managing the shift to a low-carbon economy in a way that is fair and inclusive, ensuring that no one is left behind.

Such responses work more broadly to meet, and ideally create synergies with the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The three processes of mitigation, adaptation, and sustainble development for everyone together can be considered “climate-resilient development.”

The three aspects are related and affect each another. For example, initiatives that aim to support mitigation need to be adaptable to a heating climate or they could fail. Also, a community’s needs for adaptation are a function of how much warming is prevented by mitigation. And responses that are just, equitable, and inclusive are likely to strengthen the possibilities for mitigation and adaptation.

References

1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2023). AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/

2 https://globalecoguy.org/we-need-to-see-the-whole-board-to-stop-climate-change-98be66412281

3 https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa

Click to access United%20States%20NDC%20April%2021%202021%20Final.pdf

https://rhg.com/research/us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2023/embed/#?secret=Jj3TeU8v8M#?secret=FlMJIU6o5c

The US commitment is to reduce emissions from 2005 levels (7.4 gt total and 6.7 gt net) by about half (50-52%) by 2030. The US is projected to achieve about half of that reduction (26-28%) by 2025.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2022). Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel. See especially Technical Summary. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/

See also the Moreworks bibliography

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High-reward climate action: Safe streets

When people think of climate solutions, the mind often goes to things that need be installed: Solar and wind, battery storage, building retrofits, tree planting, and carbon removal. All are essential.

Yet a powerful, fast-payback lever hides in plain sight: designing streets for safety. Safer streets cut emissions directly and acts as a force multiplier for transportation decarbonization—one of the largest sources of climate pollution in many countries and an area where progress must accelerate.

Safe streets unlock “avoid and shift,” the fastest path to lower transportation emissions. The biggest gains come first from avoiding car trips through better land use, then from shifting remaining trips to walking, cycling, and transit.

Avoiding and shifting multiply what is possible with vehicle improvements by reducing the number and length of car trips before technology even enters the picture.

Safety is the skeleton key that lets avoid and shift scale in transportation—and it delivers unusually strong returns on investment. Compared with large capital projects, quick-build safety upgrades, protected bike networks, safer crossings, and bus priority can be delivered rapidly, save lives immediately, reduce vehicle miles traveled, and unlock further climate benefits. This is not marginal action; it is a force multiplier that climate advocates should prioritize.

Bicycling and walking

Research shows that most people’s relationship with a bicycle for transportation is that they are “interested” but concerned that the risks and stress are too much. They’re open to bicyling and walking if it feels safe and convenient, but not if it feels exposed or confusing.

Perceived safety governs behavior. That means physical protection from fast traffic, lower speeds where people move, frequent and visible crossings, lighting, and predictable intersections. Where cities reduce vehicle speeds and add protected bike lanes and continuous sidewalks, injuries fall and the share of trips by foot and bike rises. As more people use these facilities, drivers expect them and everyone gets safer. This is how shift happens at scale.

Public transit

Safe streets enable transit in turn. Every rider is a pedestrian for part of the trip. If it is hard to cross to a stop, if the stop lacks lighting or a curb, or if the last block home has no sidewalk, the experience is unacceptable. Safer crossings, traffic calming on transit corridors, and priority for buses at signals make the whole trip safe and trustworthy, which builds ridership and reduces crashes at the same time.

Transit also creates a feedback loop: Per passenger mile, the mode is safer than driving for everyone. Vehicles are larger and driven by trained professionals, and each bus or train replaces many cars, which reduces conflicts on the street. Good transit also gives people who should not drive a better option. Teens, older adults, people with certain medical conditions, and anyone who is tired have a safe alternative when service is frequent and reliable.

Transit upgrades are also high-ROI: modest signal changes, dedicated lanes, and safer stop access can deliver large travel-time and safety gains at a fraction of the cost of roadway widening.

Efficient vehicles, electric and otherwise

Safe streets also enable smaller, lighter vehicles—and help end the arms race toward bigger and heavier ones. Lower-speed networks, traffic calming, and separated facilities make compact cars, neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs), and microcars practical for everyday travel. In many jurisdictions, NEVs can operate on lower-speed streets; when those streets are designed for safety, households can right-size to vehicles that consume far less energy and pose less risk to others.

This reverses the trend toward ever-larger vehicles driven by high-speed, high-volume roads and crash incompatibility. Designing for safe, lower speeds makes small, efficient vehicles viable, which further reduces emissions, space needs, and crash severity.

And it matters even for electric: When considering the overall vehicle fleet, a proportion that is meaingfully smaller and lighter corresponds to a meaingfully lower GHG footprint. It also means fewer materials and resources for electrification are needed per vehicle, which has an additional effect in aggregate. Finally, a more circumspect average vehicle profile is safer for those traveling outside vehicle cabins, like walkers and cyclists, which in large numbers induces more of the lightest travel of all.

Compact, human-centered neighborhoods

Compact, mixed-use neighborhoods reduce daily travel needs so people can reach most essentials with short trips. A connected street network, homes near jobs and schools, and local services within a short walk or ride lower vehicle miles traveled across the entire community.

That cuts emissions and makes streets safer, because shorter trips on calmer streets mean fewer high-speed impacts. Children can reach a park without crossing a five-lane road. An older neighbor can get to a cafe without a long drive. People using mobility aids can count on accessible paths. Safety becomes part of daily life rather than a personal burden.

The wider built environment

Crucially, the same choices that make streets safer also produce a more resource‑efficient, resilient built environment. Designing for compact, walkable places concentrates activity where efficient, electrified buildings and infrastructure perform best.

Shorter distances and attached or smaller homes reduce heating and cooling loads, making heat pumps and building electrification more cost‑effective.

Mixed-use, human‑scaled districts support district energy and shared infrastructure, lower peak electricity demand, and improve the economics of rooftop solar, storage, and demand flexibility.

Denser, walkable street grids cut materials use per capita, reduce stormwater runoff with less paved area per person, and shorten utility extensions—saving public money while boosting resilience to heat, outages, and extreme weather.

In other words, safe streets do double duty: they accelerate transportation decarbonization and strengthen the broader clean‑energy transition across buildings and grids.

In sum, improved vehicles and fuels are necessary but not sufficient. Heavier vehicles can increase the harm in crashes and crowd out the space needed for people outside cars. When streets feel safe, households can right-size travel: walk for a half mile, use a bike or e‑bike for a few miles, take a bus or train for longer trips, and use a car when it is the best tool for the job. This pattern cuts emissions faster and reduces risk right away. It also reduces the scale of infrastructure and energy systems needed for full decarbonization, improving the return on every dollar invested in electrification and clean power.

The benefits of this pathway are wide and personal. Health improves when more people can safely walk or bike for short trips. Cleaner air reduces asthma and heart disease. Most important, fewer families experience the grief and lifelong injury that follow serious crashes.

Freedom expands as more people can travel without a car. A 12‑year‑old can bike to a friend’s house. An 82‑year‑old can cross to a pharmacy. A parent can let a child walk to school without fear. Households save money when they can own fewer and smaller vehicles.

Towns and cities save money when safer street designs reduce crashes and when compact, multimodal infrastructure costs less to build and maintain than endless lanes that must be widened again and again. For climate advocates focused on impact per dollar and speed of deployment, safe streets deliver exceptional returns now and set the stage for every other climate solution to work better.

Unlock the multipliers of avoid and shift with safety. Lower speeds where people live and shop. Build connected, protected networks for walking and cycling. Fix crossings to make them frequent and visible. Invest in frequent, reliable transit and safe access to every stop. Plan for mixed uses and connected streets. These steps cut emissions, save lives, expand freedom, strengthen the clean‑energy transition in buildings and grids, and save money. Safe streets are high‑ROI climate action—and a catalyst for more.

References

Dill, J., and McNeil, N. (2013). Four Types of Cyclists? Examination of a Typology for Better Understanding of Bicycling Behavior. Transportation Research Record. https://doi.org/10.3141/2387-01

Teschke, K., et al. (2012). Route Infrastructure and the Risk of Injuries to Bicyclists. American Journal of Public Health. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2012.300762

Litman, T. (2021). A New Transit Safety Narrative. Victoria Transport Policy Institute. https://www.vtpi.org/safer.pdf

Ewing, R., and Cervero, R. (2010). Travel and the Built Environment. Journal of the American Planning Association. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944361003766766

FHWA (2021). Safe System Approach. Federal Highway Administration. https://highways.dot.gov/safety/zero-deaths/safe-system-approach

IPCC (2022). Climate Change 2022 Mitigation of Climate Change. Working Group III contribution. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/

PNAS (2025). Global health and climate benefits from walking and cycling. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2422334122

UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies (2025). Active travel study identifies pathways for walking and cycling friendly cities. UCLA ITS. https://www.its.ucla.edu/2025/06/09/active-travel-study-identifies-pathways-for-walking-cycling-friendly-cities/