San Antonians are finally enjoying cooler, wetter weather, relief that didn’t arrive until October.
The metro area and its nearly 2.5 million people have survived the hottest summer on record, with 74 days of temperatures of 100 degrees or more. That’s 15 more days — a half month! — than the previous record of 59 days set in 2009. The summer months in the city were either the hottest on record (August and September) or second-hottest (July).
If you think this summer was near intolerable, wait until next summer. Or the one after that. The summer of 2023 should serve as an inflection point, one where the debate over human-induced climate change ends. The science and data should lead state and local leaders to demonstrate greater urgency in reducing greenhouse gasses.
We are not alone. Cities around the country experienced record high temperatures, lingering blankets of wildfire smoke and unprecedented storms from Southern California to Maine. We are all in this together, like it or not.
Yet I detect no sense of urgency in the air, especially at the state level where Republicans remain in denial and in the throes of the state’s powerful oil and gas lobby. Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas legislators had nearly $33 billion in surplus funding to allocate in the 2023 regular session, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the lack of measures passed to address global warming, to accelerate renewable energy production or to support mass transportation projects.
Democratic-sponsored bills to reduce greenhouse gasses, incentivize renewable energy companies, improve energy conservation and address the unfair impact of climate change on communities of color all were allowed to die.
Republicans passed new laws limiting the authority of cities to introduce climate change initiatives, incentivizing the construction of more fossil fuel-burning power plants and excluding out-of-state renewable energy companies from securing state incentives if they move their businesses here. Oil and gas companies that move here are eligible for major incentive packages.
“The climate is worse off for the Legislature having met,” Environment Texas Executive Director Luke Metzger told the Texas Tribune.
The biggest source of emissions comes from the built environment, yet nothing has been done in 2023 to call on businesses to reduce energy usage. Office towers stay brightly lit at night, air conditioning systems continue to cool empty buildings, and only the best developments incorporate shade trees, green spaces, low impact lighting and reflective rooftops.
Excluding federal funds sent to the state and cities, there is no significant mass transit funding available to cities from the Texas Department of Transportation, a misleading name for what is really the state’s highway building and maintenance department. Austin-San Antonio is the fastest-growing region in the country, yet state lawmakers are ignoring the Interstate 35 transportation crisis. When cities like San Antonio have attempted to redesign state-owned surface roadways located inside the city limits to slow vehicle traffic and make streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians, TxDOT has reneged on previous commitments and blocked the projects.
Texas continues to lead the country in vehicle fatalities, and the state saw a record year of cyclist and pedestrian fatalities in 2022. Implementing the United Nations Climate Change initiatives for cities is impossible under current political circumstances.
San Antonio City Council passed the SA Climate Ready Plan in 2019 after two years of study, a plan that was met with support in some quarters and opposition in others. While the plan generally aligns with the 2015 Paris Climate agreement and the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, it lacks hard deadlines for specific measures to meet the UN’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030. At the current rate of carbon-based energy generation and consumption in San Antonio, that goal will be unattainable.
CPS Energy leads the state in solar-generated power with 13 solar farms generating nearly 500 megawatts of power, about 7% to 8% of total usage. Wind-powered generation accounts for even more of the renewable energy portfolio, yet all together the two sources only account for a small share of total energy generation. Coal and gas still produce more than 50% of the CPS Energy portfolio. Nuclear continues to provide 25% of the CPS Energy portfolio.
The utility board has approved a goal of shutting down the Spruce I coal plant by 2028 and converting the Spruce II coal plant to gas one year earlier. Don’t be surprised if state authorities acting through the Electric Reliability Council of Texas move to block or delay that closure.
The best story San Antonio has to tell, in my view, is the diversification of its water supply over the last few decades, most recently with the Vista Ridge pipeline project. Conservation programs promoted by SAWS also have achieved significant savings, allowing the city to rely on the same level of water usage today that was used in 1980 when San Antonio was half its current size and relied solely on the Edwards Aquifer for its water.
Yet half the water used during the summer months in San Antonio, according to SAWS Senior Analyst and Environmental Scientist Gregg Eckhardt, who I interviewed in August on the bigcitysmalltown podcast, is consumed by residents and commercial customers using automatic irrigation systems to maintain non-native grasses and landscaping. That is not sustainable as the city continues to grow at a record pace.
The hot summer is behind us now, but that doesn’t solve the problem. The season’s first “cold front” does not lessen the very real climate crisis we are experiencing and that will only grow worse if we do not act. San Antonio today is on course to record even hotter summers and more extreme weather episodes in the years ahead.
Enjoy the cooler temperatures and the welcome rains while they last: San Antonio’s mild season grows shorter each year.
