Bill Hocker | Nov 11, 2015

NVR: County climate action plan heats up

I attended the first CAP public meeting on Nov 9th. I'm not sure that the GHG trail that I created from Berkeley and back again was worth it. It was principally a powerpoint presentation by the consulting firm, Ascent Environmental Inc., hired by the county to do their CAP, laying out the process for producing a CAP. The powerpoint presentation is here.

People had some questions - position statements really. One person in the audience was quite concerned that CAP's do not really look at the problem holistically, for example assessing the entire lifecycle of the wine industry in its generation of GHG's.
Dir. Morrison was quick to remind everyone that the county can only assess a very small part of global climate change (they have no ability to influence the GHG's produced by county municipalities much less the rest of the world). The county is already doing more than most CA counties, most US states and most of the nations of the world. It has a 1%/yr growth limit on housing, and voter regulated ag zoning protection. The CAP is drafted to respond to the requirements of State Assembly Bill AB32 which is proscriptive about its areas of concern.

In the most memorable statement of the evening to me, Dir. Morrison did admit that while he was in Yolo County they did an analysis showing that an acre of urbanized land produced something around 100 times the amount of GHG's produced by an acre of farmland. But this was not the kind of abstract analysis asked for in the CAP. CAP mitigations might be used to try to reduce the GHG's of various specific practices but CAP is not a tool to promote policy regulations limiting urban development entirely. (Such as a 1%/yr limit on job creation or non-residential building area.)

As the speaker pointed out, without allowing the mega questions to be asked and the mega solutions to be proposed, the CAP was principally designed to be an environmental (and governmental) fig leaf that allows GHG producing development to continue. Like widening highways, reducing GHG without also reducing the urban development that creates the problems just means more development while at best the problems remain the same.

As I have tried to point out in my own screed on growth issues, the concept is out there of a no-growth, sustainably stable economic future. Napa, with its high value agricultural economy dependent on restrained urban growth, is in a better position than most to realize a successful no-growth economy.

Ms. Walters of Ascent Environmental indicated that the place to take up the larger questions of development and climate change are at Scoping Workshops of the State Air Resources Board. (although the guiding principals of the Scoping plan to "create jobs and support a robust workforce" and embody a "market based program" seems to be stacking the deck against success).

Update - Climate Action Plan public meeting #2:
NVR 2/26/16: County tallies up its greenhouse gas emissions

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