Despite finite resources,\u00a0cities must adapt to climate change impacts and also continue working to reduce their carbon footprint,\u00a0city officials and climate adaptation experts said at a\u00a0Cities Climate Action Summit<\/a>\u00a0panel last week.<\/p> \u201cIt\u2019s a false trade-off,\u201d said Kit England, senior climate adaptation specialist at consulting firm Paul Watkiss Associates. While it\u2019s likely\u00a0global warming will exceed<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, he said, every ton of greenhouse gas emissions avoided still lessens future climate change-related costs and impacts.<\/p> Jane Gilbert, chief heat officer for Miami-Dade County, Florida, said \u201cwe\u2019re shooting ourselves off\u201d\u00a0by adapting to a warming world without reducing emissions.\u00a0Los Angeles Deputy Mayor for Energy and Sustainability Nancy\u00a0Sutley\u00a0agreed:\u00a0\u201cThis idea that we can separate the two, it doesn\u2019t really work for us,\u201d she said.<\/p> Cities should pursue projects that simultaneously protect communities and infrastructure while reducing emissions, panelists said. \u201cA resilient building is also a low-carbon building,\u201d Gilbert said. \u201cA resilient coastline is also one that has a lot of nature-based features and is sequestering carbon.\u201d<\/p> Sutley pointed to the city-owned Port of Los Angeles, the\u00a0Western Hemisphere\u2019s busiest seaport<\/a>\u00a0in a city\u00a0notorious for poor air quality<\/a>.\u00a0Powering the port with clean electricity would not only slash greenhouse gas emissions but remove air pollution that inundates surrounding neighborhoods, she said.<\/p> Integrating climate mitigation and adaptation isn\u2019t always simple.\u00a0For example, Miami-Dade County announced last year that it would\u00a0spend millions of federal American Rescue Plan dollars<\/a>\u00a0on 1,700 air conditioning systems for public housing residents \u201cto make sure that lives are saved\u201d during extreme heat,\u00a0Gilbert said. Although the AC units will be energy efficient and paired with energy efficiency retrofits and weatherization of buildings, Gilbert acknowledged this effort will result in a \u201cslight uptick\u201d in energy use.<\/p> Read the full article about climate change by Ysabelle Kempe at Smart Cities Dive.