Our general meeting will be June 5th on Zoom, at 6pm.
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We want to find out how people feel about:
a) Having general meetings outside during warmer weather. We tried this last summer and it was really too cold to stick to a 6pm meeting time. What are some alternatives if we want to meet in person?
b) Having social gatherings, especially in the summer, so that we can see each other in person and get the affirmation that meeting with other members brings. (Like at rallies, or our sea level rise actions.)
c) Or we might stick to zoom for general meetings and schedule gatherings separately.
What are your preferences?
We will also be discussing a “survey” the County has put out regarding the CAP.
We will spend some time looking at types of reduction that have been suggested and seeing how they add up to the 160,000 metric tons of GHG reduction the CAP says we need.
But we will also spend time developing questions and criticisms based on the relatively little information being shared now. (The actual CAP is likely to come out in late June or July.)
So below are materials we will discuss, taken from the survey, followed by some broad questions/criticisms that may help us respond to the actual CAP.
HUMBOLDT COUNTY CAP SURVEY
The goal (according to this document) is a reduction of 160,000 metric tons of CO2 by 2030. The “game” Rincon proposes is to have community members choose among these options so that the chosen actions add up to 160,000 MT.
Below we show all the options arranged in order of the greatest greenhouse gas reductions.
CAP Actions | – GHG | CumSum |
Increase passenger ZEV use to 15% | 54000 | 54000 |
Increase public transit to 20% in urban areas | 40000 | 94000 |
Reduce organic waste to landfill by 75% | 20000 | 114000 |
Increase public transit mode share to 10% in rural | 20000 | 134000 |
Increase commercial zero emission vehicle use to 10% | 18000 | 152000 |
Decarbonize off 10% of off-road equipment regionalal | 13000 | 165000 |
Increase enrollment in RCEA 100% clean and renewable | 10000 | 175000 |
Public trans increase | 10000 | 185000 |
Develop regional mobility hubs and ZEV car-share programs | 5000 | 190000 |
Develop a natural and working lands GHG inventory baseline | 5000 | 195000 |
Offshore wind for grid | 4000 | 199000 |
Reduce existing nonresidential nat gas use by 5% | 3600 | 202600 |
Municipal fleet decarbonization | 3000 | 205600 |
Reduce residential natural gas use by 2% | 2500 | 208100 |
Develop an alternative fuels network in the county | 2000 | 210100 |
Decarbonize 95% of new nonresidential buildings | 2000 | 212100 |
Decarbonize 95% of new residential building | 1500 | 213600 |
Increase mixed use development in infill priority areas in cities | 1500 | 215100 |
Achieve SB1383 procurement requirements | 1500 | 216600 |
Increase active transit by 7% in urban areas | 1200 | 217800 |
Increase Micro grids and storage | 1000 | 218800 |
Deploy carbon sequestration technology in the region | 750 | 219550 |
Reduce residential propane/wood use 2% | 600 | 220150 |
Reduce wastewater treatment emissions by 30% | 500 | 220650 |
Committee | 0 | 220650 |
Some questions to consider:
1. These options only go through 2030. We should be able to choose through 2045. What difference does it make for options you might choose that we don’t know the potential for reduction through 2045?
2. What is the Planning Department going to do with the information from the survey? We have been unable to get them to show us a sampling design. If we don’t know the factors that led some people to the survey and others not, we don’t really have a sample but a selection process. How could this survey be made more representative?
3. Only one option for implementation is given, a committee. What about paid staff? How many staff will it take and where will they best be located in the overall governmental structure? What about paid Climate Resilience Internships for young people as in Santa Cruz?
4. Sacramento County pays for its CAP by charging large developers. Can we do the same thing?
5. The goal is 160,000 MT CO2, in the old CAP the goal was 204,500, a 40% reduction relative to 1990. What changes in targets or baseline account for the differences?
6. How do we actually measure these actions and their GHG effect?
7. The Planning Department desperately wants this to be a “qualified” CAP:
A qualified Climate Action Plan (CAP) is one that meets requirements so that future development projects requiring environmental review under State law can streamline greenhouse gas (GHG) impact analyses by demonstrating consistency with the CAP. It will allow for consistency in the GHG reducing features that are included as part of the design of new development projects.
Does this make sense? Do we trust the county’s planning departments to apply it rigorously?
8. Many of the major reductions come from measures where there is no clear connection between the action and the result, including passenger vehicle electrification (a good charging network is important but cannot guarantee such a big increase in adoption in such a short period) and RCEA RePower+ opt-ups.
9. Some of the measures are just implementing existing state laws, such as SB 1383 compliance, and should therefore be counted as baseline conditions and not additional reductions.
10. Some of the measures rely on switching to “renewable fuels,” which can have dubious emissions benefits.
11. The new inventory estimates 1.5 million MT CO2e in 2022 – basically the same as the previous estimate for 2015. It also “backcasts” the 1990 emissions inventory at 2.1 million MT. This is the same number that was previously estimated for 1990 that included industrial point sources. The result of this estimate is that the county is taking credit for about 600,000 MT of reductions that have already happened (somehow) and is only claiming responsibility for another 160,000 MT of reductions by 2030. Again, just as with including point sources, this reduces the county’s ambition dramatically, and again sets us up for failure in meeting targets beyond 2030 when we can no longer take credit for past reductions. It’s hard to imagine what could have resulted in a nearly 40% decrease in emissions since 1990 without some funny accounting. I think it is critical for us to see some justification for how the 1990 inventory could be so much higher than 2022 without including point sources, if we are to have some trust in this process.
12. Some of the options in the survey don’t look like they meet the criteria for a qualified CAP.
13. What kind of local enforceable policy actions would cause additional carbon sequestration on Natural and Working Lands (NWL), reductions in off road vehicle emissions and replacement of residential gas appliances with electric ones? How would a baseline survey of NWL sequestration capacity produce additional reductions in GHG emissions? If you did count NWL carbon reductions, would you not have to also return NWL emissions to the inventory? The same justification for leaving out agriculture (no local enforcement ability) also applies to forestry.
14. Do the emissions reductions claimed for a hydrogen hub take into account lifecycle emissions from the methane gas that will likely be used to make most of the hydrogen between now and 2030?
15. RCEA’s goal already is 100% renewable electricity by 2025. How can you count increased enrollment in RePower Plus or anything RCEA has already planned as additional greenhouse gas reduction?
Your questions?