Climate change is at least a distant fifth in line for attention from the federal government, behind sequestration, debt ceiling, gun control, and immigration. Couple that position with the fact that many congressional lawmakers don’t even think warming exists, and the United States isn’t likely to take meaningful climate action anytime soon. That means it’s up to localities to take the lead — states in a general sense, but really cities themselves when it comes to the details.

To better understand the motivation for local action, UCLA urban planner Rui Wang has been studying how cities go about taking action on climate change. Wang recently reviewed California planning surveys to determine climate actions taken in 2008 and 2009 by the state’s 480 cities. In an upcoming issue of Urban Affairs Review, Wang reports that cities tend to adopt climate change policies in increments — pushing simple policies first, then in some cases working toward more challenging ones.

In other words, writes Wang, cities pick for the “lower-hanging fruits.” (Even in California, with state environmental laws like SB 375 and CEQA in place, cities must implement the policies.)

Take the adoption of local actions to mitigate harmful emissions. For 2008 and 2009, Wang found that the most widely adopted policy climate actions were at the individual project level, such as mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in a major public project (71 percent). Efforts to tackle the problem at a systemic level were far less common. Only 15 percent of cities calculated their community baseline emissions, and only 9 percent set formal emission reduction targets.

A similar pattern emerged with regard to particular projects in 2008. Cities more commonly adopted project measures that improved energy efficiency in buildings or reduced car travel (48 and 44 percent, respectively). When it came to sequestration measures, such as planting trees to trap carbon, that rate fell to 23 percent. Only 2 percent of cities went so far as to purchase carbon offsets.

These findings show us two things about city climate actions, according to Wang. The first is that local climate actions in California occur incrementally — not haphazardly. Cities willing to adopt tougher systemic actions (like baseline targets) or project measures were very likely to have already adopted the easier policies that most cities chose.

Of course the second thing we see with the results is that most cities stop at the easier policies. The easier individual mitigation strategies can be “win-win”: reducing building energy, for instance, not only helps the environment but saves money. The tougher ones, like purchasing offsets, require direct costs and have fewer tangible benefits for developers.

So the goods news is that, at least in California, localities are working up toward strong policy in an incremental fashion — not tossing darts and seeing what they hit. The less good news (it’s certainly not “bad,” per se) is that many cities are stopping at what Wang calls the “easier” actions:

The above observations indicate that some actions were adopted first and more frequently, whereas other actions, probably because of their higher costs or institutional barriers, were mainly adopted by a subgroup of those who adopted the “easier” actions. This incremental pattern of adoption sup¬ports the existing literature’s finding that cities tend to focus on win-win measures but fail to adopt a systematic and structured strategy to tackle climate change.

This analysis must be kept in broader perspective, especially compared to federal inaction. Yes, some cities may be picking what Wang calls the “lower-hanging fruits” when it comes to climate change policies. At the same time, climate action remains a very new part of the policy world, and in some cases the easiest policy may also be a good fit. What climate actions cities are picking is important to know — but that they’re picking deserves recognition as well.

This story was produced by Atlantic Cities as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

From a behavioral perspective, the hardest thing about adapting to the slow process of climate change is creating a sense of urgency. After a close call with Hurricane Irene a couple years back, and a horrible clash with Hurricane Sandy this past fall, New York is beginning to accept the fact that when it comes to weather patterns along its coasts, there’s a terrifying new normal.

Late last week, just two months after Sandy, a state commission released a massive, 200-plus page blueprint on ways to develop resilience in the face of tomorrow’s environment [PDF]. The NYS 2100 Commission — one of several formed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo following Sandy — evaluated the state’s critical infrastructure systems and recommended a gradient of goals, from broad to specific, to reduce their vulnerability.

“There is no doubt that building resilience will require investment, but it will also reduce the economic damage and costs of responding to future storms and events, while improving the everyday operations of our critical systems,” write commission co-chairs Judith Rodin of the Rockefeller Foundation and Felix Rohatyn of Lazard in a foreword.

While the commission offered statewide suggestions, its emphasis fell naturally on the New York City metro area — especially coastal parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island — where Sandy hit hardest.

The report’s recommendations were based on five characteristics of resiliency: spare capacity (e.g. establishing backup systems, such as alternative transportation routes), flexibility (favoring “soft” solutions that can be modified over time, like improved hazard maps and evacuation plans), limited failure (designing infrastructure networks, especially power grids, to shut down in pieces instead of wholes), rapid rebounds (initiating preemptive response strategies, like creating fleets of portable generators), and constantly learning.

Ideas produced by this model of resiliency cross a number of infrastructure sectors. Some of the broadest ones touch on the insurance and financial sides of resilience. The commission recommends considering ways to pre-fund disaster recovery, for instance, and also the establishment of an infrastructure bank to coordinate and maximize the investments bound to occur in coming years. A general strengthening of the energy grid, especially securing critical systems, is also suggested.

Many of the recommendations specific to New York City fall in the category of land use. The former includes a host of “green infrastructure” initiatives. These take the form of restoring wetlands and oyster reefs in New York Harbor to break up storm surges, or building an archipelago of small islands in front of the harbor, or dumping old subway cars into the sea to form barrier reefs. (As Sarah Goodyear recently pointed out, even green infrastructure is subject to destruction during major storms.) The commission also suggests a comprehensive assessment of a true storm surge barrier on the harbor, estimating the cost between $7 billion and $29 billion.

Even more city-relevant recommendations focus on solidifying the transportation network (which, it should be said, recovered rather well post-Sandy). The commission encourages measures to limit subway flooding, including waterproof roll-down doors at the foot of subway entrances, mechanical vent closures, and inflatable plugs or bladders for the tunnels themselves. It also suggests a general increase in pump capacity and upgrades of infrastructure subject to seawater erosion. More resilient airports — featuring raised runways, better drainage valves, and more emergency fuel storage — also get mentioned.

The biggest transportation suggestion is what the commission calls “redundancy.” Here the commission’s idea is to create so many overlapping routes into and out of the city that if one fails the others can continue to function. Recommendations include expanded intercity rail networks, more surface transit, additional ferry service, and continued support of non-motorized travel modes like biking.

There are a few particular projects endorsed by the commission to meet this redundancy goal. Some are the usual suspects: a new transit tunnel across the Hudson, expanded Long Island Railroad service, and Metro North commuter rail access at Penn Station on the west side (instead of only Grand Central on the east). The most novel idea is the establishment of a vast bus rapid transit network — beginning perhaps with a “BRT task force” created this year — to complement the rail system and fortify inter-borough corridors.

The New York Times, reporting last week on a draft of the report that seems similar to the final version, wondered if the recommendations weren’t too sprawling and vague. The Times also pointed out that a “disaster preparedness commission” already exists under state law, making the present one rather superfluous. Last, the paper notes that commissions and reports mean little if they aren’t followed by political action.

All these critiques of the NYS 2100 Commission are well taken. Still we shouldn’t forget that climate adaptation policy remains pretty uncharted territory. These problems are very new, the solutions largely untested. At some point quite soon New York (and other vulnerable cities) will have to select and implement adaptation measures. For now it’s at least a partial sign of urgency that we’re building consensus around the best ones.

This story was produced by Atlantic Cities as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.