International Climate Champion=Yours Truly!

On April 27, the ten 2009 International Climate Champions from California were officially announced at a press conference on the steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento. The program is sponsored by the British Council (the nonprofit arm of the British government) and the California Air Resources Board (the agency in charge of all our global warming regulations). I am happy to say Aragon student, incoming EIC chair, and friend Julia Borden as well as I were both chosen to be one of ten in the state! That means two of the ten are from Aragon High School! Whoa! How cool is that, huh?

Each "champion" must implement a self-designed project related to climate change awareness and mitigation over the course of the next year. In addition to working individually and as a collective group, we will also represent California abroad at various conferences, such as the G8 Summit in Italy and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Conference in Denmark.

My project right now is to work with municipalities around California to implement innovative property tax based solar financing initiatives similar to those in Berkeley and Palm Desert. The reason I am so behind them is because they allow a homeowner at any income level (good credit required, though) to use his property taxes to finance solar or other energy improvements. In return for paying higher property taxes for 25 years or so, a newly created tax district lends him the money needed to install the panels. The tax district is funded by low-interest municipal bonds. In most cases, the annual or semi-annual "tax" payments net with the energy savings, so it's a win-win for everyone!!

You can read about the program at ClimateChamps.org, or at the British Council's Int'l website. I made the local news here an the KQED Climate Watch blog here.