{"id":341996,"date":"2026-06-01T22:00:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T22:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/341996\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T22:00:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T22:00:06","slug":"mountain-view-grapples-with-carbon-neutrality-goal-as-support-wanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/341996\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain View grapples with carbon neutrality goal as support wanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, Mountain View has been\u00a0making progress<\/a> in combating greenhouse gas emissions with a goal of\u00a0reaching carbon neutrality<\/a>\u00a0by 2045. But that target is shaping up to be more challenging than anticipated, as shifting political winds have\u00a0altered<\/a>\u00a0federal and state policies that the city once counted on to help reach its decarbonization goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last time the council addressed this issue, we said, \u2018Can we make it by 2035?’\u201d Councilmember Alison Hicks recalled at a May 26 meeting. \u201cAnd then we kind of galloped off in that direction and got the rug ripped out from under us.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the meeting, city staff presented a revised plan for Mountain View to try and reach carbon neutrality by 2045, one that has a more sustained focus on local and regional strategies that can be implemented over the next five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t get to zero emissions all by ourselves, but we don\u2019t throw in the towel because of this,\u201d Danielle Lee, the city\u2019s chief sustainability officer, said. \u201cLocal actions are insufficient, but they are essential.\u201d<\/p>\n

What has changed?<\/p>\n

Early last year, Mountain View started to explore ways that it could speed up its goal of achieving carbon neutrality, potentially reaching it as soon as 2035. Since then, there has been a rollback of federal and state policies that could have helped the city achieve significant emissions reductions<\/a>, Lee said.<\/p>\n

In May 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u00a0revoked a waiver<\/a>\u00a0that it had given to California, which would have allowed the state to\u00a0ban the sale<\/a>\u00a0of new gas fueled vehicles, starting in 2035. The waiver would have reduced emissions in Mountain View by approximately 263,595 metric tons, according to the city staff report. Without the waiver, the city is now projected to be responsible for 40% of the emissions reductions needed by 2045, up from just 7%.<\/p>\n

\u201cRevoking that waiver has shifted significant responsibility to the local level to deal with greenhouse gas emissions,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

Assembly Bill 306<\/a>\u00a0also has limited local jurisdictions from adopting or amending residential building codes until 2031, including\u00a0reach codes<\/a>\u00a0that promote home electrification to reduce the use of natural gas, according to the staff report.<\/p>\n

In response to these changes, Mountain View is looking to implement more localized strategies to cut emissions, with a particular focus on reducing the use of fossil fuels in buildings and transportation. Together, buildings and transportation systems constitute the largest share of Mountain View\u2019s total community emissions, approximately 90%, Lee said.<\/p>\n

City Council weighs in on decarbonization plan<\/p>\n

The City Council viewed the five-year decarbonization plan favorably, describing it as a pragmatic approach to reducing carbon emissions in the near term.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to take a broader view when the federal administration wasn\u2019t changing so many of the policies, but that\u2019s not the case right now,\u201d Councilmember Pat Showalter said. \u201cWe just need to move forward with what we can control.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan is grouped into five categories, with the bulk of the action items focused on buildings and transportation. Some of these include expanding access to electric vehicle charging for multifamily buildings, exploring the implementation of reach codes for commercial buildings that go beyond state energy standards and advocating for policies and funding that advance sustainability goals.<\/p>\n

The items are meant to be a menu of possibilities, Lee said, stressing a need for flexibility with changing federal and state regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do have kind of an overly exhaustive list because the policy landscape is moving so quickly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While officials expressed support for the plan, Councilmember Lucas Ramirez raised concerns about a general lack of political will to make hard decisions to combat climate change. He noted that people often oppose prohibiting the use of natural gas<\/a> or putting in more restrictive parking standards to discourage vehicle use. However, he added that it didn\u2019t mean the city shouldn\u2019t try to implement the decarbonization plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that we do the right thing when those decisions come to us,\u201d Ramirez said. \u201cI\u2019m not confident that we will, but while I\u2019m here I will do whatever I can to maximize our ability to respond locally in the way that we need to, if we\u2019re serious about decarbonization.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in the Mountain View Voice<\/a>. Emily Margaretten joined the Mountain View Voice in 2023 as a reporter covering City Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, Mountain View has been\u00a0making progress in combating greenhouse gas emissions with a goal of\u00a0reaching carbon neutrality\u00a0by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[712,88,90,89],"class_list":["post-341996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-centerpiece","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}