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The State Department uses consulates and embassies to demonstrate leadership and climate solutions abroad.
BY STEPHANIE CHRISTEL, MEREDITH
Eighth from the left, the eighth-placed Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra and ambassadors pose together at the launching the Eco-Capitals Forum in 2016.
U.S. Embassy Bangkok
One week after his election, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14008: Resolving the Climate Crisis at Home & Abroad, placing the climate crisis “at the center of United States foreign policy and national security.” The president appointed former Secretary of State John Kerry as his Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, returned the United States to the Paris Agreement, and hosted a Leaders Summit on Climate on Earth Day, April 22.
To increase climate resilience and sustainability in our operations, the State Department’s 12-year-old Greening Diplomacy Initiative (GDI), managed by the Office of Management Strategy and Solutions (M/SS), embarked on a new burst of planning and activity to help meet the White House’s ambitious goals to further reduce our environmental footprint and improve our climate resilience. The department’s goal is to support ecodiplomacy efforts by leveraging the worldwide talent, facilities, operations and expertise of U.S. policy, technology, and environmental successes. Some of the goals will be focused on the implementation of White House orders, which include transitioning State Department facilities worldwide into carbon pollution-free electricity and zero-emission vehicle purchase, as well as a net-zero emissions building portfolio.
The Department of State is able to lead the fight against climate change with its unique combination of more than 22,000 real estate assets, 90,000. personnel, and 14,000 vehicles worldwide. Our consulates and embassies serve as strategic platforms to show leadership and climate solutions overseas. We take advantage of this opportunity to show the importance and impact climate mitigation and adaptation. Perhaps no other foreign issue lends itself to the integration of policy and operational practice like climate mitigation and adaptation.
As has been the case to date, our success will depend critically on the 120 “Green Teams” in the field championing sustainable operations at posts around the world. It will be crucial to partner with other countries and leverage U.S. expertise on sustainable solutions and environmental technology. The work will require mobilization across the department’s functional and regional bureaus, as well as support from dozens of internal and external experts, senior department officials and interagency partners. Reframing climate resilience—i.e., anticipating and preparing for increasingly hazardous climate conditions—to be a top priority across our management platform and shifting our operations to meet climate change mitigation goals will be a decadeslong process.
A New Working Group
State created a Climate and Sustainability Working Group to help determine the best way forward. This group was established in order for the White House to meet its goals. The group was established in March and includes representatives from more than 12 offices, including the bureaus Administration, Overseas Buildings Operations Operations, Information Resource Management, Diplomatic Security, and the six regional bureaus.
Two major plans will be used each year to identify and achieve climate resilience and sustainability milestones. The Climate Adaptation and Resilence plan will outline how the State Department is responding to climate change and protecting its investments. The 2021 plan, which is the first since 2014, prioritizes five adaptation actions that will improve our overall climate resilience. State will increase resilience by increasing mobility of our workforce, services, and assessing our preparedness for disasters resulting from climate change. It will also build the ability to make data-informed decisions about climate vulnerability assessments and to make data-informed decisions. It will also work with host governments to improve their local infrastructure.
Green Teams have recorded over 300 success stories since 2009, which is a testament to their continued efforts.
The Sustainability Plan spells out the department’s mitigation goals and the actions being taken to meet them. Since 2010, State has published sustainability reports annually. However, the Sustainability Plan does not address overseas operations. This is partly due to the fact that we operate in hundreds of different countries, with different policies, infrastructures, and conditions. The department will develop baselines for overseas operations and set ambitious goals to meet the White House’s energy, water, waste, buildings, procurement and fleet goals.
These actions together will not only help us improve the safety and security our personnel, operations, facilities, but also protect the American taxpayer’s investments, especially at foreign diplomatic posts.
Building on Experience
The department must have a climate-literate workforce to be successful. This means that they will have a solid understanding of climate change and a foundation for understanding how everyday actions can affect climate change.
We don’t start from scratch. The GDI has been providing sustainability guidance for more than a decade and leading department-wide efforts to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, implement energy efficiency and waste reduction technologies and programs, as well as engage with host countries and the private sector regarding sustainability. Spearheaded by committed and knowledgeable Foreign Service officers and specialists, eligible family members (EFMs) and locally employed (LE) staff, the “Green Teams” at embassies and consulates around the world volunteer their time to create specific eco-diplomacy and sustainability goals to align with their location’s particular needs, making our diplomatic posts exemplars for sustainable and resilient operations.
Since 2009 Green Teams has more than 300 success storiesTheir continued efforts are a testament to them. A team from Cape Town led a conservation campaign that reduced their water consumption by 70% during a drought for over a decade. The Bangkok Green Team instituted a “Turn It Off” campaign that reduced their embassy’s electricity usage by 13 percent over a three-month period. Green Teams have also been responsible for implementing over 30 Resilience Innovation Grant project projects in the last three years. This was supported by the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations. The grant was used by the embassy in Panama City to install a rainwater harvesting device to reduce their daily water consumption of 4 percent.
These projects helped to improve readiness and adapt to local climate impacts on operations. Green Teams and senior-level support for them will continue being a key component in identifying local and regionally important mitigation and adaption activities to drive and amplify action.
Engaging International Partners
Engaging with our international partners is crucial as more than 85 per cent of GHG emissions come from outside the United States. Every country must take ambitious actions to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This includes national governments who often have the largest workforce, fleet, and real estate footprints in a country.
Through the Greening Government Initiative, a new program launched this year and led jointly by the U.S. and Canada, the State Department will support White House efforts to create a community of practice aiming to green national governments’ operations. This initiative will allow countries around the world to share their experiences, encourage innovation, and set common goals to help countries meet their Paris Agreement commitments.
We will also collaborate with diplomatic partners to promote the Eco-Capitals Forum. This forum allows diplomatic missions to support local and host governments’ sustainability goals. These forums draw on the vast network of diplomatic partners to share best practice, create markets and foster cooperation on a local scale. In 2018, the D.C. Eco-Capitals Forum worked with the private sector to collect individual embassies’ energy demands to create a new solar project in the region. The creation of a joint project allowed embassies to access renewable electricity at lower prices. The project promotes sustainability goals of the District of Columbia as well as participating foreign countries and can be replicated in other nations.
We will also be working with diplomatic partners in order to promote the Eco-Capitals Forum. It is an avenue for diplomatic missions that support the sustainability goals host and local governments.
The State Department will work closely with the interagency to maximize the experience of all federal agencies. The Department of Energy, General Services Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are all partners in modernizing our operations. We will also be implementing best practices to meet these goals.
Collaboration and coordination with the Department of Defense (USAID) will be crucial to ensure that we mirror our international efforts and take advantage of economies of size where possible. We will be able to integrate the most recent climate data into our decision-making by leveraging the best scientific support available from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Achievements and Challenges
The State Department is working hard to meet some of the sustainability goals. State has reduced its U.S.-based GHG emissions more than 46 percent since 2008 and more than 35% of our domestic electricity comes from renewable energy. This is thanks to an offsite New Jersey wind farm. Overseas there are more than 50 U.S. diplomatic and consular posts that have been certified by U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Additionally, more than 40 consulates and embassies in the United States have renewable energy installations. Six domestic buildings and 98 diplomatic posts have integrated MeterNet, the State Department’s smart metering system, to track real-time data on energy demand and identify energy conservation measures. Under the Embassy 2050 initiative, the department partners with universities to identify and evaluate new technologies, innovations, and best practices in order to respond to long-term drivers for change.
There are also many challenges. It will be difficult to capture relevant environmental data and develop the infrastructure to support them in achieving their goals. But as Janice deGarmo, director of M/SS, observes: “The importance of data cannot be understated for helping the department prioritize where to expend its limited human capital and financial resources to get the biggest climate impact.” In recognition of the importance of the issue, the Center for Analytics in M/SS will focus on data as one of its strategic themes in the department’s Enterprise Data Strategy.
While State ranks number one among federal agencies for domestic renewable energy use and has significantly reduced water consumption, according to the department’s annual sustainability scorecard produced by the Office of Management and Budget, we lag behind federal domestic goals in energy intensity, sustainable buildings and fleet management. Implementation is difficult because of restrictions placed on us by the host-government, local governments, and the inaccessibility of environmentally friendly products.
State is investing in new technologies in order to address some of these issues. The Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations launched EnergyCAP in 2021. This automated system captures utility bill data. This is a change from the manual process. This new system, which currently integrates data from 180 posts around the world, will allow us to develop baseline energy and water costs, prioritize conservation projects, and track progress.
The State Department, as guests in almost 200 countries, must take action to reduce our climate impact and improve climate resilience. In some places, we might need to increase preparedness for drought or wildfires, while in others, we will need to take measures to stop heavy rains from flooding. Our operations are so critical that we need to be prepared for all possible climate impacts and mitigate those risks.
The United States strives for leadership and innovation worldwide. The State Department as well as the federal government are crucial to achieving our climate objectives. They play a key role in ensuring that we can look into the future. All our employees—Foreign Service, Civil Service, LE staff, EFMs and contractors—will need to act together. Washington, as well as all diplomatic posts, must have a common goal and a common voice in order to effectively tackle the climate crisis.
Stephanie Christel Meredith is an eco-management analyst with the Department of State’s Greening Diplomacy Initiative in the Office of Management Strategy and Solutions. She joined the department in 2018 as a Presidential Management Fellow, and has served with State’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs and the Department of Defense.
Continue reading
- “21st Century Diplomacy: Climate Policy is Foreign Policy,” by Wilson Center, October 2, 2020
- “The United States Isn’t Ready for the New Phase of Climate Change,” by Alice Hill, Foreign Affairs, September 8, 2021
- “Eco-Diplomacy: Building the Foundation,” by Donna McIntire, The Foreign Service JournalApril 2014
