Zachary Monroe is external affairs manager for the City of New Orleans Office of Resilience and Sustainability. His office advises the city on how best to achieve its environmental, social, economic, and infrastructural improvement goals, including the city's climate action plan. Monroe leads outreach efforts associated with resilience-building projects with other organizations.
The 28th meeting of the Conference of Parties, or COP 28, was this year's iteration of the biggest climate change conference in the world, hosted by the United Arab Emirates. The conference, which ran from November 30 to December 12, ended with attending countries officially agreeing to transition away from fossil fuels, which are driving climate change.
Zachary Monroe, external affairs manager for the City of New Orleans Office of Resilience and Sustainability.
Why did you and Mayor Cantrell attend COP 28? Have you been before?
We did not go last year, but I believe it's the mayor's second trip to COP. This year, there was a big push to recognize local governments and the role of local government in climate action. So COP actually was kicked off by the Local Climate Action Summit, hosted by Bloomberg Philanthropies. There was a push from the Biden administration as well, to showcase a lot of climate action happening in the US, our renewed commitment to the Paris Accords, and specifically around the work being done through the inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the bipartisan infrastructure law. The Mayor joined a lot of other mayors, nationally and internationally, and that included a lot of the groups that the city’s part of -- so US Conference of Mayors, the climate mayor's group, Mississippi River cities and towns initiative all sent delegations, as well as C40 cities.
I heard about the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative. Did being in their delegation improve your COP experience?
They set up a lot of good meetings for us that the mayor took part in, especially with the Biden administration. So we had a meeting with the IRA implementation director, the senior advisor to the president, John Podesta, since they're funding a lot of coastal restoration work going on. We also signed the agreement with the Indian River Cities Initiative. So, just looking at how we can share best practices from our basin to their river basin. Learn about how to mitigate flood, drought. There’s the dead zone off the coast here from pollutants that are brought down the Mississippi. They've done a lot of great work around cleaning up pollutants in their rivers and they've seen reintroduction of some species that had been damaged by pollution.
How long were you all there, and what are some of the most notable panels and talks you attended?
We were there from December 1-6. The mayor was scheduled in meetings and panels throughout the whole conference. Mayor Cantrell took part in a lunch for the C40 Water Safe Cities Accelerator, a program within C40, an international group of 40 of the largest cities on Earth who are all committed to major climate action. It was chaired by the mayor of Rotterdam, and we have a lot of the same water issues that that they have, and we’ve learned a lot from them. Cantrell was on a panel with the mayor of warsaw, the mayor of Freetown and some transport union workers about the importance of a just workforce transition. As we're transitioning to 21st century green-blue jobs, we’re making sure to bring residents along with workforce development opportunities that are becoming available, and contracting opportunities too so that local residents here can take advantage of the 21st century green economy.
Are there any funds that were announced that the city got for environmental projects or any you're definitely going to go for?
The Bloomberg Philanthropies Youth Climate Action Fund, that was announced at the US mayor's breakfast and is looking at deploying micro grants to groups that are working in both the climate and youth space. So we submitted a letter of intent for that program, I believe two weeks ago, and we'll be working on our application to join that program in the next few weeks and months. We’re applying for more funding with the state right now for the New Orleans East Land Bridge. We've been awarded a few coastal restoration grants for Bayou Bienvenue Wetlands and Central Wetlands through NOAA funds and our delegation had a good meeting with the NOAA scientists there.