Oakland City Council plans to make huge cuts to greenhouse gas emissions

By Sean Maher
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 07/06/2009 05:54:32 PM PDT
Updated: 07/06/2009 06:01:37 PM PDT

OAKLAND — A long-term plan to significantly reduce the city's greenhouse gas
emissions and energy usage will officially begin if the City Council votes today
in favor of the plan.
The proposed Energy and Climate Action Plan, or ECAP, would call on Public Works
Agency analysts to sift through hundreds of potential strategies for the
reduction of pollution and energy waste. They would look for ideas that would
bring quick results, create jobs and business opportunities, said Garrett
Fitzgerald, a sustainability coordinator for the city.

"This is a 'getting the ball rolling' gesture," said Dave Room, a coordinator
for the Local Clean Energy Alliance who pushed for the plan. "Where the rubber
meets the road will be this fall or winter, when they've done their analysis and
come back to council and say, 'we'd like to set a final target for the
reductions. Here are the bench marks, and here are the policies we think should
be enacted.'"

Councilmember Nancy Nadel (Downtown-West Oakland) called the plan an important
way to create new green jobs for Oakland residents.

"We've set pretty high goals, which would help us reach to really make a
difference in terms of greenhouse gas emissions," Nadel said. "The point is to
make sure we're not just tinkering away at the problem, and be realistic about
what we need to do to make a real impact."

The proposed targets are to reduce emissions to 36 percent below 2005 levels by
2020, and to 83 percent below those levels by 2050.

Planners said the research will have no impact on the city's budget. Some
funding will come from a settlement reached when California sued a handful of
power providers for price gauging during the 2000 and 2001 energy crisis, Public
Works spokeswoman Christine Schaff said. Oakland's share of that money has been
used for increasing solar power efforts in the city and some will go to the ECAP
research, she said.

Public Works held four public hearings on the subject to get input from
residents about what ideas should be on the table and what other issues could be
important to the project, Garrett said. A summary of that input is posted online
at www.sustainableoakland.com.
Another round of public meetings will be held when the agency has a first draft
of the proposal in the fall, he said.

The City Council is expected to vote on the proposal during a public meeting
that begins at 6 p.m. in City Hall today.


Reach Sean Maher at smaher@... or 510-208-6430.