Climate Change Commission

Urban Heat Guidance

This guidance provides a set of findings and recommendations to the City on managing heat stress and heat shocks. It describes the physical nature of atmospheric and marine heat in Hawai‘i and provides accounts of how other cities have managed urban heat, the successes and lessons learned, and possible directions that will provide the maximum benefit for City services and communities. Past and present efforts to manage urban heat in the City and County of Honolulu are also reviewed.

Climate Change Brief

This brief describes the local, regional, and global impacts of climate change as documented by peer-reviewed scientific literature and credible empirical data sources. It provides a benchmark for the commission, attesting to the Climate Change Commission’s concerns, underpinning the Commission’s decisions and recommendations, and serving to inform those the Commission serves.

Sea Level Rise Guidance

This report builds on findings in the Hawaiʻi Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report (2017), Sweet et al. (2017), USGCRP (2017), Sweet et al. (2018), and other scientific literature to provide specific policy and planning guidance on responding to sea level rise by the City.

This document provides an overview of carbon pricing mechanisms and the “social cost of carbon” (SCC) and how this might apply to the City and County of Honolulu. SCC is a monetary estimate of economic damage that would result from emitting one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to the City on operationalizing a carbon price to guide City decision-making.

The purpose of this guidance document is to define social equity in the context of climate change, explain the importance of social equity in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, begin to identify conditions that create resiliency and vulnerability on O‘ahu, and provide key findings and recommendations for local leadership to inform equitable decisions with regard to climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives.

Additionally, the Climate Change Commission adopted an Equity Pledge on December 16, 2022, to commit to and incorporate equity throughout the entirety of their Commission work.

The purpose of this guidance document is to provide considerations of the emerging financial risks affiliated with climate change, particularly climate shocks and stressors relevant to the City and County of Honolulu. This prompts the need to critically examine the nature of hazards, current insurance information and mechanisms used by the City, as well as general practices of public finance. This guidance document highlights potential alternative risk transfer options to address climate change shocks as well as discusses City public finance in the context of climate change stressors.

One Water for Climate Resiliency White Paper

Water, in all forms, is critical to Hawai‘i’s built and natural environment and managing it sustainably will be essential as the pressures of development, aging infrastructure, climate change, and sea level rise increase over time. This White Paper asserts that a supporting ordinance is needed to provide a ‘One Water Collaboration Framework’ among City agencies to coordinate planning and infrastructure investment for climate resiliency. This new ordinance will help develop actions and processes for implementing the goals and strategies advised in Directive 18-2.

The Hawai‘i Revised Statutes (HRS), Chapter 205A, authorizes the City to establish a coastal setback and to revise it as appropriate. In order to provide guidance on new shoreline regulations and rules, this document provides recommendations for amending the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu 1990 (ROH), Chapter 23, “Shoreline Setbacks.”