It’s a cruel irony of climate policy: doing the right thing often looks expensive in the short term, even as doing nothing exacts a much higher cost in the long run. Cities across the country are learning this the hard way—faced with roads buckling in extreme heat, floodwaters overwhelming outdated drainage systems, and public health emergencies triggered by air thick with wildfire smoke. Saratoga Springs is no exception.

The city’s Municipal Climate Action Plan (MCAP) outlines a sweeping vision for change: carbon neutrality by 2050. It’s an ambitious, scientifically grounded response to a problem that grows more urgent by the year. But as with all such plans, its success hinges not on aspiration, but appropriation—on whether we’re willing to pay for the future we claim to want.

At the center of this financial reckoning is Strategy 11 of the MCAP: the creation of a Green Transition Fund. The idea is simple in concept, if difficult in practice. Instead of hoping individual departments will scrape together grants or sacrifice core services to fund climate projects, the city would establish a dedicated source of revenue—a pool of money earmarked for sustainability investments large and small. The city’s planners have identified potential revenue streams: a portion of the Champlain Hudson Power Express payout, a Community Preservation Fund, monetized Renewable Energy Credits, and even a municipal bond modeled on Saratoga’s 2002 open space initiative. But none of this is guaranteed. As of now, the Green Transition Fund remains an idea.

This delay is not unusual, but it is revealing. The sticking point is not information. The science is unequivocal. The need is clear. The problem, rather, is perceptual. Climate action is still widely viewed as a luxury—or worse, a liability—rather than what it really is: a form of insurance.

Take the Weibel Avenue Landfill. The methane flaring system installed there is supposed to prevent the release of potent greenhouse gases. According to the city’s own GHG inventory, that single site accounts for 67% of municipal emissions. But the flare system, by the city’s admission, has worked only “intermittently.” The fix is not exotic technology. It is funding and follow-through.

Or consider building retrofits. They’re often shelved for being "too expensive" up front. But the energy savings they generate—especially in large public facilities—regularly pay for themselves in a few years. The MCAP cites Buffalo’s Avant Building, which saw annual savings of nearly $270,000 after upgrades, with a payback time of under four years. These aren’t expenses; they’re investments with dividends.

Meanwhile, the costs of inaction mount invisibly, until they don’t. A flooded basement. A cancelled race day. An ambulance crew treating heatstroke victims. These are costs too, borne not by the line item but by the community—especially its most vulnerable members.

Framing matters. When we describe solar panels as a cost, we obscure the fact that they reduce long-term energy bills and shield cities from price volatility. When we balk at electric buses, we overlook the health burden of diesel exhaust on kids and seniors. When we delay stormwater upgrades, we count the construction expense but not the insurance premiums, the property damage, or the erosion of public trust when infrastructure fails.

If Saratoga Springs is serious about climate action, it must revise its mental ledger. Climate spending is not a cost. It’s an investment in fiscal stability—avoiding the ballooning costs of crisis response. It’s an investment in public health—lowering rates of asthma, heat stroke, and waterborne illness. And it’s an investment in economic resilience—protecting the tourism economy from weather disruption, reducing the city’s exposure to fossil fuel volatility, and making it a more attractive place to live, work, and invest.

The Green Transition Fund is not just a policy tool. It is a test of political imagination. Can Saratoga Springs see past the next fiscal quarter toward the next generation? Can it act now, not react later?

Elizabeth Kolbert might remind us that ecological systems do not wait for budget cycles. And Bill McKibben would likely point out that the bill is already coming due. Climate change is not a distant cost. It’s a compounding interest problem. Every delay makes the solution more expensive.

The choice facing the city is not whether to pay, but when—and whether it wants to make those payments as investments or as reparations. The future will be funded one way or another. We still have time to choose the terms.