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By Miriam Raftery
December 16, 2015 (San Diego)—By a unanimous vote, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday enacted a plan to address climate change that may be the most ambitious in the nation. The plan sets a goal for the city to attain 100 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2035, also reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in 2020 and 50 percent by 2035.
Mayor Kevin Faulconer told Councilmembers, “We are a city where the quality of the environment is essential to our quality of life.” Faulconer said the plan will create jobs and preserve the city’s leadership in the clean-tech industry, also improving public health and air quality, reducing dependence on imported water, and increasing use of clean energy.
Climate Action Campaign announced the San Diego is the largest American city to commit to producing all of its energy from renewable resources.
The plan has been in the works for five years. Councilman Todd Gloria, who pushed for the plan when he was interim mayor, said the 100 percent renewable goal is “ambitious” and “aggressive” but that “we as policymakers ought to sets high goals.” Speaking to a rally held by environmentalists before the vote, Gloria stated, “The cost of inaction is enormous, and the benefits of a healthy planet are obvious.”
The measure had backing form a broad coalition that included environmental groups, labor organizations, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, San Diego Taxpayers Association and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E).
The plan includes five strategic focus areas:
- Energy and water efficient buildings, encouraged through incentives and mandates
- Clean and renewable energy, with the city taking the lead on installation of local renewable energy projects
- Encouraging bicycling, walking and public transit through land-use decisions
- Reducing waste, promoting recycling and composting, as well as capturing landfill gases, redirecting 90 percent of the city’s garbage away from landfills within 25 years.
The plan requires a cost-benefit analysis of each action as well as a separate implementation ordinance in the future. Other future elements include setting up an urban tree planting program and requiring that homebuyers be informed of a home’s energy and water usage.
The plan also requires a consultant be chosen to study community choice aggregation, which if adopted would shift electric power buying from SDG&E to the city. Environmental leaders say this is the only way to reach 100% renewable energy by 2035. Councilmember Marti Emerald sought to push the deadline for community choice to come before Council forward to the first phase of the plan, but her proposal was not included in the final version of the plan.
SDG&E has supported the overall climate action plan, and currently delivers 33 percent of its energy from renewable resources with a goal to reach 50 percent by 2030. However the utility has a substantial financial interest at stake and SDG&E filed a petition with the state that would allow it to lobby on community choice, a move that has drawn protests from environmentalists and some elected officials.
The Council Chambers was packed, with about 80 members of the public speaking in favor, Times of San Diego reports. The vote was 8-0. Councilman Scott Sherman, who is recovering from a medical procedure, was absent.
The action coincides with this week’s international agreement forged by world leaders at the Climate Summit in Paris.
Passage of the plan drew praise from Nicole Capretz, director of the Climate Action Campaign, KPBS reports. She praised the San Diego plan, stating, “The beauty of this commitment is that it creates clean air and energy jobs, brings back local control of our energy future .” She added that in adopting the plan, San Diego’s City Council “puts us back in charge of our energy and water destiny.”
Read the city’s Climate Action Plan.
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