(Graphic via English Wikimedia)

​​ON THE SWELTERING Sunday of July 4th weekend, Dianne Hills called ambulances to provide emergency relief to residents suffering from heat exhaustion.

Dianne is the executive director of My Brother’s Table, a soup kitchen and service agency dedicated to assisting residents in Lynn. Through her work, she has witnessed firsthand the climate impacts that burden the residents of her city. Extreme heat has been one of the worst.

“I’ve been a part of a group working on climate change adaptation and resilience, particularly around responding to extreme heat events in our community,” Hills says. “In Lynn, we have many people who are at high risk for heat-related illnesses because of existing conditions. It doesn’t help that our city’s characteristics—dense housing, inadequate shade, heat-absorbing infrastructure, and lack of access to air conditioning—put residents at additional risk.”

​​​​​Heatwaves kill more people worldwide than any other weather-related event, and cities across the state are particularly vulnerable. High temperatures are harmful even beyond direct exposure: Heat can worsen air quality by trapping pollution in place, and it can exacerbate a range of health conditions, including respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease, and mental health issues. 

Temperatures are only getting more extreme, with several of our cities and towns setting new records this year. The Northeast as a region is warming faster than the rest of the country, even as climate impacts are worsening across the board. In the summer of 2023, one flood in Western Massachusetts wreaked havoc on family farms along the Connecticut River and caused $39 million in damage to local roads and bridges. Last year, wildfires across the state burned thousands of acres of parklands, including over 400 acres of Lynn Woods near Dianne Hills’s community.  

​​​Cities and towns are doing what they can with projects like planting trees, opening cooling centers to help combat heat, upgrading critical infrastructure like culverts, and designing parks to capture flooding from stormwater or sea level rise. But these interventions require money, and a lot of it.  

Historically, the federal government has been a significant source of funding for many climate solutions, providing matching dollars to help boost state or local money. In April of this year, Massachusetts lost more than $90 million in federal funding for climate adaptation with the cancellation of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program. Many of these projects would have helped communities prepare for and reduce damage from coastal and river flooding, while other cancelled grants would have helped cities combat extreme heat. Federal grants are also crucial for mitigation, helping us make the needed shift away from fossil fuels – major contributors to the warming climate.

Massachusetts was awarded $156 million under the Solar for All grant program, another recent victim of federal funding cuts.  

As a result of federal funding cuts and historic underinvestment, Massachusetts has a major funding shortfall in terms of what is needed to protect communities from climate change and reduce carbon pollution. A forthcoming report commissioned by the state will help shed light on a specific number, but the need is massive.

The governor’s recent Mass Ready Act — an environmental bond bill proposing $2.9 billion in investments over five years — is a major first step toward funding climate solutions, but we need more. Fortunately, we have solutions.

Three bills in the state Legislature this session would generate long-term, sustainable revenue. Together, they would fund clean energy initiatives, climate resilience projects, and the production and preservation of climate-resilient affordable housing.  

A diverse group of supporters, including housing organizations, environmental nonprofits, community development corporations, faith groups, and more, have come together around this need for climate funding. A briefing at the State House in June brought all of these groups together, united around the common goal of advancing these bills that will help generate revenue for climate action.

Now is the time to build on this initial momentum and move these bills forward to fill urgent funding gaps. The climate crisis cuts across all sectors, so its solutions must as well.  

One bill would leverage a small fee on real estate property insurance premiums to generate $90 million per year. This money, generated by the Equitable and Sustainable Climate Funding coalition’s legislation (H.938 / S.572), would fund actions to reduce the pollution that drives climate change and address impacts of extreme weather, with a focus on communities that are vulnerable to risks and have experienced repeated impacts. The bill was designed by a broad coalition representing many perspectives that aimed to put resilience front and center.  

A second bill, the AHEAD Act (H.3194/S.1973), would increase the deeds excise fee applied to real estate sales in Massachusetts, generating more than $400 million each year in support of affordable housing and climate investments. Half of this funding would support new housing vouchers and construction or preservation of thousands of new climate-friendly housing units, and provide flexibility to cover emergency assistance needs. The other half would support large-scale climate mitigation and adaptation projects, such as decarbonization of low- and moderate-income housing and protection of coastal communities, where 193,000 properties are at risk of flooding. 

Finally, the Climate Superfund Bill (H.1014/S.588), championed by the Make Polluters Pay coalition, aims to hold the biggest oil and gas companies accountable and require them to pay their fair share to cover the costs of climate-related damages.

Though climate change is largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels, it’s Massachusetts families and businesses that are footing the bill. Shouldn’t the oil companies — that make billions in profits every year — be asked to share the financial burden in dealing with the consequences of fossil fuel use? Similar bills were passed in Vermont and New York last year, with the New York bill potentially generating $75 billion over the next 25 years. Of the revenue generated, 40 percent will go to the communities hit first and hardest by climate disasters, and projects will be required to use strong labor protections. 

​​​​​​​​​While no single bill is a cure-all, together these would give Massachusetts the resources to prepare for extreme weather and reduce future risks. If we fail to act now, the costs — in dollars and in lives — will only grow.

No one should have to spend summer days calling ambulances for neighbors collapsing from the heat. Communities across the Commonwealth deserve the funding and tools to keep people safe, healthy, and resilient in an overheating world. The Legislature must make that possible — now.  

Ali Hiple is a senior policy analyst at the Conservation Law Foundation. Nathanael Shea is director of public policy at the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations. Daniel Zackin is legislative manager at the Better Future Project.