With a historic budget for parks and recreation, New York City is crafting strategic plans to increase tree canopy through an environmental justice lens.

New York City's $624 million parks budget includes funding for capital projects such as planting 20,000 new trees. City Council recently held an oversight hearing on increasing tree canopy, which gave residents the chance to provide input on shade access in their community.

Council Member representing Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, Shekar Krishnan - who chairs the Committee on Parks and Recreation - said the hearing can inform solutions to addressing disparities of tree presence in different neighborhoods.

"In particular, low-income communities of color have far less tree-canopy coverage than other neighborhoods do," said Krishnan, "and that directly results in hotter temperatures known as the 'urban heat island' effect. And so the brunt of the lack of tree-canopy coverage isn't shared equally."

The budget also includes funding for stump removal, which can make way for new trees. A report from The Nature Conservancy found that as of 2017, the city's overall tree canopy was about 22%.

Victoria Sanders - research analyst with the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance - said as New York City moves forward with plans for improving tree-canopy equity across the city, communities that have long been disinvested due to racially discriminatory policies such as redlining must be prioritized.

"There's all this red tape that impacts the way funds can be used," said Sanders. "A lot of the trees that are being planted are replacing trees that already exist. So I think there needs to be maybe some pushback so that a larger amount of the money can be put toward making sure there's equitable tree distribution."

Emily Nobel Maxwell - New York Cities program director for The Nature Conservancy - said she's excited by the budget investments in urban forests, but said there's more work to be done.

"We know that to better ameliorate the impacts of extreme heat, we need more tree canopy," said Maxwell. "It would mean protecting and maintaining the canopy we have. And that requires maintenance funding, laws to protect our canopy, it requires enforcement."

The Forest For All NYC coalition has called for a citywide goal of 30% tree coverage by 2035.

President-elect Donald Trump retakes office in less than a week and promises to roll back efforts to combat climate change. But state-level efforts will continue in North Carolina. Trump has promised to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act passed under President Joe Biden. Brittany Griffin with the nonprofit CleanAIRE NC says that would hurt the state, including its ability to prepare for more severe weather as climate change worsens. But she says there are glimmers of hope on the state level.

"We still have a lot of state-led policies, and then our makeup now of the General Assembly looks different. We have a governor who also is pretty well-informed and, I believe, dedicated to addressing environmental issues in our state," he said.

Griffin added that her organization will be working with community and legal partners to resist potentially harmful changes under the Trump administration. CleanAIRE NC's community science manager Daisha Walls is on the Environmental Justice Advisory Council for the Governor's Office.

Griffin noted that there are a number of ways CleanAIRE NC is helping people feel more empowered, such as through its air monitoring networks in communities across the state and clean energy transportation efforts in rural areas, and said community member involvement is important to the state's response to climate change.

"When they amplify their voice, it allows them to feel like they are participating in the process of shaping environmental policies as it relates to their communities," she explained.

North Carolina lawmakers have passed climate goals under the state's Carbon Plan that aim to reduce Duke Energy's carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. But Griffin said the current plan falls short for the state's underserved and impacted communities. However, it is renewed every two years and she hopes they have a larger say in the next iteration.

"We at CleanAIRE NC would like to make sure there's more inclusion for communities in the planning process so they can actually more directly benefit from it," she continued.

For workers or pension systems trying to keep support for the fossil-fuel industry to a minimum, one expert has some suggestions.

Just last month, Maryland State Retirement and Pension System officials voted to create a climate advisory panel.

The panel will be tasked with advising the pension system on how to consider climate risks in investments.

For those who are just starting to invest for retirement, Jessye Waxman - campaign advisor on Sierra Club's fossil-free finance team - said fossil-fuel stocks aren't the most profitable or stable option.

"The fossil-fuel industry has been pretty volatile in terms of the kinds of returns it's looking at," said Waxman. "Holding fossil fuels is actually a more risky proposition. They're creating a lot of instability and not optimizing for portfolio returns."

A study of Maryland's pension portfolio agreed. It found the stocks in oil and gas companies in Maryland's pension system were falling behind.

The study found the portfolio would have grown an additional 10% if the pension system had divested in 2010.

For those current shareholders, Waxman said to hold investments and use voting power to keep companies accountable on climate issues.

That includes denying debt, which involves not buying new bonds for fossil-fuel companies. That, she said, makes it more difficult for fossil-fuel companies to operate - or expand operations.

"If you are a shareholder," said Waxman, "hold the stocks that you have, and use that to leverage your power as a shareholder to hold companies and their boards accountable for their greenhouse-gas emissions, for decarbonization efforts. "

A Sierra Club report found that bonds are a growing share of financing for fossil-fuel company projects, such as new pipelines and coal power plants.

In 2000, bonds accounted for 14% of fossil-fuel financing, compared with 52% in 2020.

A new report found fossil fuel lobbyists in two states with strong transparency and disclosure laws were not making full disclosures, including Washington state.

Washington ranked eighth in the country with a "C-plus" in the report from F Minus, an advocacy group tracking fossil-fuel lobbying across the nation. The audit found fossil fuel lobbyists in Washington state made disclosures only 8% of the time.

James Browning, founder and executive director of F Minus, said the lobbyists frequently work for both fossil fuel and climate advocacy groups.

"Refusing to disclose their work for oil and gas companies shows that they're keenly aware that this can be bad for their image, that they can be seen as villains on climate and that's bad for business," Browning contended. "It's bad for their image."

Browning pointed to the Pacific Whale Watch Association and Chevron sharing a lobbying firm.

Browning noted the audit from F Minus has been sent to the state's public disclosure commission but he has not heard back. He was encouraged when the Public Disclosure Commission in October started asking lobbyists what legislation they worked on. However, preliminary filings are only slightly better, he added. In fact, Browning pointed out one lobbyist has been copying and pasting the same disclosure for all of its fossil fuel lobbying since 2018.

"Clearly the lobbyists don't take this seriously," Browning asserted. "It's really outrageous given the cascading climate impacts in Washington state; extreme heat, fires and just the fear we all have to live with of the climate crisis."

In the report, 27 states received failing grades over the transparency of their lobbyist disclosure laws.