Katie Walsh, Senior Manager, Cities, States and Regions, CDP North America

CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, runs the global disclosure system that enables companies, cities, states and regions to measure and manage their environmental impacts.  They have built the most comprehensive collection of self-reported environmental data in the world.  Their network of investors and purchasers, representing over $100 trillion, along with policy makers around the globe, use their data and insights to make better-informed decisions.  Through their offices and partners in 50 countries they have driven unprecedented levels of environmental disclosure. 

Participating entities respond to the CDP questionnaire annually.  The primary value of a disclosure platform such as CDP is that it enables policymakers, investors, and customers to hold entities accountable for their impact on the environment.  For example, asset owners, asset managers, banks and insurers can use the data to push forward the low-carbon transition to inform their investment decision making, engage with companies, reduce risks and identify opportunities.

In 2018, 650 global cities responded to CDP with 186 in North America.  The Cities, States and Regions program is an important group within CDP because approximately 70% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from cities and cities’ citizens are on the frontlines of climate change.  The good news is that there are many things a city can do to reduce their footprint and address vulnerabilities to climate change.  

What do you actually do all day? 

I wear several hats, the first one is focused on supporting disclosure and reporting for US and Canadian cities, states and regions, which we’ve been successfully growing over the past few years.  In 2015, the year the Paris Agreement was adopted, we saw an increase in the number of cities reporting by 70% and last year 66 new cities in North America started reporting.  Many of these cities had signed onto the We Are Still In agreement following Trump’s declaring that he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement.  Cities are very interested in demonstrating their support for the Paris agreement and the steps that they are taking to reduce their emissions.

In addition to growing the number of responders, I also help city representatives with understanding the questionnaire, protocols, and standards.  Some cities are responding in order to demonstrate the positive actions they’ve been working on, while others are just getting started.  If a city hasn’t done any risk assessments and doesn’t yet understand how climate change will impact their city, then responding is more of an exercise in laying that groundwork and understanding the areas where they’re vulnerable.  We run training webinars to help people get started, and we also partner with accredited service providers than can provide cities with tailored content on risk assessment and climate change planning. 

My second hat is managing our global finance program for cities.  Almost two years ago we launched ‘Matchmaker’ which links cities’ climate action projects to investors.  We collect basic data about these projects and make them available to investors who are looking for projects on resilient infrastructure to invest in.  We’re not broker-dealers, so we simply share the basic information about the projects with the investors and let them reach out to the cities directly if they’re interested.

From a day to day perspective I spend a lot of time on the phone or offsite for meetings.  A lot of my conversations center around how organizations can use the data that’s been reported for useful decision making.  I’m often talking to a partner organization or to an investor or a new city to help them understand how they can use the information in a more specific way and what the data shows us, tells us, and what we can do about it.  I also go to a lot of events to talk about the data we’ve collected and what it tells us, and I support the development of our summary reports. 

What are some of the key skills for success in this role? 

It’s changed a lot in the five years since I’ve started the job.  Believe it or not I didn’t start this position with knowledge on how to do a basic greenhouse gas city inventory. I learned it on the job and then took the Urban GHG Inventory Specialist exam. These days an understanding of GHG accounting and how to do it for a city are certainly starting requirements. 

City risk assessments have also matured in the last five years.  When I began, risk assessments were somewhat inconsistent but as of about two years ago there is a recognized standard for how to conduct a municipal risk assessment which is important to be familiar with.  The framework for urban risk assessments is actually embedded in the CDP questionnaire so when an organization responds, they’re essentially conducting a risk assessment.  If you’re interested in learning the elements of a risk assessment, you can read our questionnaire and the corresponding guidance document.  In that document there is a link to the CRAFT Framework for Risk Assessments which will give you all the details you could possibly want. 

You also need to have an appreciation for learning how cities work.  Every city is organized differently and you have to be able to get your head around who holds the power and where decisions get made.  Internships in various city departments can be really helpful with building this skill.   

Public speaking skills are also important, as is analytical thinking.  We’re a very interdisciplinary team, I may focus on cities but I also work with colleagues on the investor side who have finance backgrounds and on the corporate/CSR side so I have to be able to think on multiple levels. 

What is your favorite part of your job?

I love that I get to work with people from all over the world who have had so many different kinds of experience and want to influence different stakeholders.  I also love the interdisciplinary nature of the work and the varied expertise of my colleagues.  For example, one  colleague might share what’s happening with  deforestation in Indonesia related to palm oil and nature-based solutions to climate adaptation while another is expert on science-based targets.  It keeps me engaged and excited. 

What is the hardest part of your job?

It’s very disheartening when I reach out to a new city to ask them to report to CDP and they decline because they say their city administration or their mayor doesn’t believe in climate change.  It’s hard because I know that their city will be impacted in one way or another and they’ll be even more vulnerable because they won’t be prepared.  It’s also hard when I speak to a new city representative who IS a champion for climate change and they know how important it is to address but they can’t get the buy in from senior leadership.  It’s frustrating because they want to be a champion but can’t because their hands are tied.  I’m always excited to support a new city but it can be hard when there’s so much internal inertia.  

What is your proudest professional achievement?

I was very excited to help CDP sign an MOU with the Mississippi Rivers and Towns Initiative.  It’s a Mayor’s leadership alliance representing 124 cities and towns along the Mississippi river that have agreed to participate in our Matchmaker project in order to make their cities more resilient.  It’s really exciting because this partnership represents people from different parts of the country, from red states and blue states, working together on these issues regardless of the politics involved. 

What are the game changers in your world?  

I’d love to see the rating agencies like S&P and Moody’s further detail how they are incorporating climate change and management of risk into their decisions and make it very clear to cities how this is part of their decision-making process.  If a municipal bond rating is clearly tied to climate change risk management, then you’ll see more cities stepping up.  Moody’s and others have started to do this to some extent, but there’s still a lot more work to be done. 

Similarly, infrastructure project ratings should include the embedded climate risk involved.  It’s a thorny issue, but should we really be giving out AAA ratings to a project that could potentially be creating more climate risk and harm to the environment?  We should be pricing climate change into these ratings. 

I’m also particularly motivated by the Green New Deal that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement are promoting for more green jobs in 2019.  It would be great if more cities continued to set goals, make plans, and come up with projects but we need massive investment in this type of work.  City by city work is what is needed, but it’s still incremental, to get change at a broader level we’re going to need private capital and a federal infrastructure bill that invests in climate change action.   

What was your path to this role? 

I studied History and Mandarin Chinese in college and spent my first few working years in San Francisco teaching in some capacity – served in Americorps and ran education programs at the World Affairs Council and Chinese Language Flagship at San Francisco State University.  It was the experience of living in San Francisco all those years where my interest in urban sustainability and climate change action sprouted.  My main mode of transportation was my bike, which the City and culture there actively encouraged, and I did all sorts of things to explore the link between city life and sustainable living – I took classes in permaculture, urban farming, volunteered with the SF Bicycle coalition, etc.  I gravitated towards it not just because it was part of how people operated there, and what the City was promoting, but it felt like it was cool, and fun, while being the right thing to do.  I discovered urban planning in this way which lead to my deciding to pursue it through graduate school, then internships, fellowships, and my current role at CDP.

What’s your advice to someone interested in a role like this?

Try to get an internship in a city.  Also try to take some basic finance classes to learn what the investor community is looking for when it comes to climate change so you can understand the investor perspective.  Get as many experiences as you can with talking to people from different parts of the country so that you can understand different perspectives.  You have to get really comfortable dropping in on someone new and spending a lot of time listening and getting different perspectives. 

What are your favorite resources? 

Inside Climate News is based in Brooklyn, they do a great roundup and wonderful investigative journalism.  They’re the organization that broke open the Exxon Mobile story about how Exxon Mobile mislead shareholder about their internal versus external price on carbon.

Planetizen by the American Planners Association – I’m an urban planner by training and I keep up with Planetizen to find out what’s happening in US Cities.  This includes sustainability updates and more. 

I also keeps an eye on 350.org, the Sunrise Movement, and on Twitter I follow C40 Cities. 

Who (or what) is your sustainability hero?  

I love Gina McCarthy who is the former administrator of the EPA, she’s amazing.  She was the architect of the clean power plan and was a state official in Massachusetts.  I love her candor and enthusiasm and how she doesn’t hold back and says what she thinks.  She’s very inspirational.