Monte Allen — File 26-1096

Please select the top three areas in which you have working knowledge, strong interest, and/or experience: Natural Resources Buildings Public Outreach and Engagement Statement of Interest: Why I’d like to be part of the Climate Action Commission Climate change is the most consequential thing happening on our planet now. Most of the leadership on counteracting climate change has been coming from states and localities. I am so proud of Somerville for launching its Climate Forward initiative. Starting with Greenpeace and later with The Nature Conservancy, I’ve had a decades-long interest in - and have worked on - environmental issues, and I continue to be interested in opportunities to have worthwhile involvement with climate action. In recent years. I played a leading role in successful efforts to persuade The First Church in Belmont, Unitarian Universalist – where I’ve been a member for over 25 years – to divest its endowment from any fossil fuel holdings and to go solar. And, currently, I am part of the working group that is guiding the church to transition from a gas fueled heating system to a carbon-free geothermal heating and cooling system. The Somerville Climate Forward initiative wisely started by conducting a study to identify the sources of greenhouse gas emissions coming from Somerville. The study revealed that the City’s building stock was the source of about 2/3 of those emissions and it informed the OSE’s thinking about where to apply its resources and efforts in order to have the greatest overall strategic impact. The study raised the question: What can the City do to persuade building owners to invest in retrofitting their buildings? With Larry Yu as a thought partner, I did a deep dive into answering that question and developed a report that I have discussed with Emily, Garrett and Naomi. As a major gift fundraiser for CARE (alleviation of poverty on a global scale), I raised a lot of money. But I think my greatest contribution to CARE was to alert the organization to the fact that climate change is, and will increasingly be, a primary underlying driver of poverty in developing countries. CARE now orients much of its programming to counteracting the effects of climate change.

I’m retired now, so I have time to devote to the things that I think are most important, and Somerville’s Climate Forward initiative is one of those things. I would like to have the opportunity, by serving on the Somerville Climate Action Commission, to help the City take the most strategic and impactful steps toward achieving its goal of carbon negativity by 2050. How I can best support the Climate Action Commission’s work While I’m not sure how they will be applied to advance the Climate Action Commission’s work, the skills that I would bring to the Commission and that I think may be particularly helpful are: • Strategic thinking • Relationship building • Persuasion, and • Community/constituency mobilization. Thank you for your consideration.