Honolulu committee presses city on heat preparedness; annex resolution postponed, cooling-centers plan advanced

The City and County of Honolulu committee on Energy, Environment and Sustainability on Wednesday advanced a resolution asking the city and the Hawaii Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission to study the feasibility of establishing cooling centers, while deferring a separate resolution that would ask the administration to create a dedicated heat-hazard annex to the city’s emergency operations plan. The resolutions grew out of Action 12.4 of the city’s Climate Action Plan, which recommends planning for extreme heat. Committee members and witnesses said heat risks are increasing and identified older residents and people without air conditioning as populations of concern. The committee postponed Resolution 25‑201, which would have requested that the administration develop a separate heat-hazard annex to the city’s emergency operations plan, and instead asked the chair to set a future date for additional information and discussion. The committee then…