20 Years Later, How Are City Climate Plans Actually Going?

Science Friday with Susan Scott Peterson | June 21, 2024

Are Cities Meeting Their Climate Targets?
“The state of decarbonization is lopsided. It’s really imbalanced in this country,” says Hilari Varnadore, a vice president at the U.S. Green Building Council, where she oversees a national program that helps cities with sustainability goals. “We have places—cities and states—that are just really accelerating progress, big time. And then there [are] just places that it’s moving super slow.”

Click here to read the article in full.

Sacramento County Climate Action Plan: ECOS Comments, Jan 2024

On January 31, 2024, ECOS submitted a letter to Todd Smith, Planning Director of Sacramento County Planning and Environmental Review, regarding the Notice of Preparation of a Subsequent Environmental Impact Report and Public Scoping Meeting for the Sacramento County Climate Action Plan.

ECOS offers two comments on the subject document, summarized below. Please see our letter for supporting information.

  1. The Climate Action Plan (CAP) and SEIR should be complete, that is, they should show how carbon neutrality will be achieved in the County in whatever year the County believes is realistic.
  2. We know that land use and transportation are the keys to GHG emissions reduction. Therefore, the CAP and SEIR should include alternatives or scenarios showing three levels and locations of development – mostly greenfield, some greenfield/some infill, and mostly infill – similar the SACOG’s three Pathways for our region that were discussed by the jurisdictions last summer.

Click here to read the letter in full.

Sacramento City Climate Adaptation Plan – ECOS Comments on Preliminary Draft

On December 5, 2022, ECOS submitted a letter to the City of Sacramento regarding their Sacramento City Climate Adaptation Plan Preliminary Draft. Below is the content of the letter.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this chapter.

Flooding: The Draft highlights the high flooding risk in Natomas. Proposed developments in the Natomas basin such as South Airport Industrial, Grand Park, and Upper West Side, would increase flooding threat to Natomas because these lands currently are agricultural, and can absorb significant water should flooding occur. In addition to increasing flooding risk in the Natomas Basin, another climate risk associated with these developments is the loss of habitat land and related species (giant garter snake and Swainson’s hawk), which would mean failure of the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan. Therefore, the City should find a mechanism to influence the County’s process of development approvals in these areas. One possibility might be a “Sphere of Influence” application to LAFCo, which has the charge to preserve agricultural land.

Trees: The City of Sacramento has both the Parking Lot Tree Shading Design and Maintenance Guidelines and a tree ordinance. These should be updated to allow for larger shade trees and larger planting areas. We note that Crocker Village has planted “lollypop trees” that don’t provide much shade, and trees on Crocker Drive have insufficient planting radius to allow for mature growth. In contrast, neighboring Curtis Park has tree plantings that shade the entire streets by foliage meeting in the middle. The City should develop programs to guide urban forestry within communities, with a focus on increasing canopy in underserved communities. Tree planting should be required as part of major roadway or utility projects. The City should establish a resource database to help staff select tree species based on maintenance costs, structural integrity, and the most appropriate planting locations.

Water: The City should actively participate in the Sacramento Regional Water Bank, to store water during high precipitation years, for use during droughts. This is especially important with models showing more extremes of precipitation, and much earlier Sierra snow-melts. Because the City relies on a combined sewer system for the older parts of the city, the City needs to budget for upsizing pipes in that water system.

Electrification: The City should move forward rapidly on an ordinance requiring existing building electrification, rather than burning natural gas that accentuates the heat island effect.

Land Use: The City should consider land use as an adaptation; e.g., rezoning around transit for higher density, creating community public spaces and parks.

Structures: The City should consider incentivizing green walls and green roofs that cool buildings and provide food in urban settings, as well as shaded bus shelters, including passive-cooled shelters, such as developed by JCDecaux. The City should develop green building programs that require institutional and commercial buildings to have cool roofs. These strategies can be phased in based on square footage and allow for flexible compliance between cool roofs, green roofs, and rooftop solar PV to help alleviate cost concerns.

Roadways: The City should have code requirements for both new roadways and maintenance activities to ensure that roadways are designed and built at the outset to support heat-resilient paving materials. The City should also require high albedo and permeable pavements for transit stations, centers, and corridors.

Click here to view the letter in PDF.

Sacramento County Climate Action Plan

On October 8, 2021, ECOS sent our comments on the Sacramento County Climate Action Plan, Final Draft dated September 2021.

Click here to view the letter.


Also on October 8th, the day comments were due, ECOS and some of its allies held a press conference on the Climate Action Plan. Below are two photos from the press conference.

Sacramento County declared a climate emergency. Its action plan should take that seriously.

By The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board | July 18, 2021 | The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento County is still drafting its long-overdue climate action plan, which could have decades-long impacts on how we care for our environment. A favorable outcome will depend on the seriousness of county officials to act in its best interests.

California is in the midst of a rough summer. Sacramento saw surprisingly early 100-degree days in May, and climate experts say the brutal heat waves across the West Coast that have killed hundreds of people and devastated shellfish will become a recurring summer norm. We’re also facing a severe drought of historic proportions. Oh, and did we mention the wildfires that are outpacing last year’s record season?

Depending on the willingness of Sacramento County officials to commit to significant mitigation strategies, it’s no hyperbole to say the county’s climate plan will determine how long Sacramento will remain habitable in the face of impending climate catastrophe.

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article252761058.html

Click here to read the article in full.


Photo by Marta Dzedyshko from Pexels