As mandated by the City Charter, the Resilience Office is tasked with tracking climate change science and potential impacts on City facilities, coordinating actions and policies of departments within the City to increase community preparedness, developing resilient infrastructure in response to the effects from climate change, and integrating sustainable and environmental values into City plans, programs, and policies.
What is resilience?
In alignment with the 100 Resilient Cities Network, we define resilience as “the ability to survive, adapt, and thrive regardless of what shocks or stresses come our way.”
Public perceptions around O‘ahu’s top shocks (events which occur rapidly and unexpectedly) and stresses (ongoing strains on society that gradually sap community strength) formed the foundation of how we frame the island’s resilience challenges and our work.
Top Priorities
Ensuring an Affordable Future for Our Island
Remaining Rooted
Our place-based culture has the highest quality of life—and highest cost of living—in the nation. The City will invest in long-term solutions that increase self-sufficiency, reduce out-of-pocket expenses, and assure our community stay intact.
Fostering Resilience in the Face of Natural Disasters
Bouncing Forward
The threats from hurricanes, flooding, and extreme weather are on the rise. The City will work with individuals, neighborhoods, and institutions to be prepared to absorb these blows and rebound in ways that put our entire community on stronger footing for each successive event.
Tackling Climate Change by Reducing Emissions and
Adapting to Impacts
Climate Security
The climate crisis is the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced and as an island society we are facing the impacts first. The City must transition to a 100 percent clean energy economy as rapidly as possible and begin changing policies and our infrastructure to protect lives and property that are increasingly in harm’s way.
Leveraging the Strength of Local Communities
Community Cohesion
Community is the essential element of resilience. The City must foster connectivity and collaboration to ensure that when we are presented with economic and environmental challenges, we will come together stronger and tighter as one island ’ohana that cares for all.
An Equity Lens
We recognize that the negative impacts of climate change are disproportionately borne by vulnerable communities. We’re committed to engaging these communities to ensure that our work considers all voices island-wide and addresses the needs of Oʻahu’s most underrepresented and vulnerable residents.
Our Commitments
“We Are Still In is a coalition of cities, states, tribes, businesses, universities, healthcare organizations, and faith groups. As they did in 2017, they strongly oppose the US withdrawal from Paris, and are not going to take a retreat from the global response to the climate crisis lying down.”
In late March 2018, City Council passed Resolution 18-55, urging the City Administration to increase the city’s urban tree canopy to at least 35% by 2035. As a City, we are committed to this urban canopy goal.
The Aloha+ Challenge is a statewide commitment to achieve Hawai‘i’s six sustainability goals: Clean energy, local food, natural resource management, waste reduction, smart sustainable communities, and a green workforce and education.
Over 70 cities have signed on to the Chicago Climate Charter and its seven strategies for climate-related policies:
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Track, measure, and report the data
Empower cities through collective action
Engage all communities, especially nontraditional voices, in policy formation
Integrate climate risks into infrastructure and emergency planning
Support policies and actions that incorporate the cost of carbon and support those most impacted
Partner broadly for robust solutions
“The Powering Past Coal Alliance is a coalition of national and sub-national governments, businesses and organisations working to advance the transition from unabated coal power generation to clean energy.”
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for worldwide action on environment, social, and economic priorities. Hawai‘i’s Aloha+ Challenge is a locally driven framework for the SDGs that can be scaled to support place-based implementation of the global agenda.