settlement<\/a> reached last year with environmental groups forces the city to report each year on\u00a0its progress on reducing emissions and to immediately take corrective action if it falls behind.<\/p>\nThat settlement forced the city to reveal that annual greenhouse gas emissions rose by 2% from 2022 to 2023. Emissions had been expected to fall by 1.5%.<\/p>\n
City officials are now scrambling to come up with some corrective actions and present them to the City Council by Dec. 31, as required under the settlement.<\/p>\n
One plaintiff from the lawsuit, Climate Action Campaign, says the city is in danger of violating the terms of the agreement and could find itself back in court if swift action isn\u2019t taken.<\/p>\n
Climate Action Campaign says the city has refused to propose necessary new policies and actions and must present \u201ca clear, actionable plan\u201d to get back on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city continues to treat the climate action plan as an aspirational vision rather than a mandate for action,\u201d said Nicole Capretz, the nonprofit\u2019s chief executive. \u201cThat persistent gap between promises and progress is why we pursued legal action.\u201d<\/p>\n
City officials say they will meet the requirements of the settlement on time \u2014 including the corrective actions, which will be part of a revised implementation plan for the climate action plan.<\/p>\n
They say they will announce the plan, meet with stakeholders to discuss it and then present it to the council \u2014 all by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
While city officials acknowledge it\u2019s alarming for emissions to go up when they are supposed to go down, they stressed that 2023 was the first full year under a new climate action plan the council approved the year prior.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe results reflect the early stages of implementation,\u201d Andrew Martin, the city\u2019s chief sustainability officer, told the council\u2019s Environment Committee on Nov. 13.<\/p>\n
Martin said the rise in emissions was primarily the result of the number of miles driven going up by 3% when 2023 is compared to 2022, natural gas use rising 6% and electricity emissions up 6%.<\/p>\n
He stressed that miles driven \u2014 known as vehicle miles traveled, or VMT \u2014 are down 14% compared to the plan\u2019s benchmark year of 2019.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the leading sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions were driving miles at 55%, natural gas used in buildings at 22% and electricity in buildings at 19%.<\/p>\n
Martin noted that recent court decisions make it harder for cities to demand all new buildings be electric instead of gas, forcing the city to pivot to different strategies.<\/p>\n
Council President Joe LaCava said the new data was concerning, but he stressed that it\u2019s hard for the city to influence the actions of its 1.4 million residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always think of the challenge of, how do you change public behavior?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
LaCava also blamed the city\u2019s budget crisis, which has left fewer city workers focused on climate change, as well as new federal policies under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve set ambitious goals,\u201d LaCava said. \u201cThe challenge is for us to figure out \u2014 in this era of limited resources and lack of federal resources \u2014 how we\u2019re going to achieve them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera agreed that some of the drivers of the emissions data are outside the city\u2019s control, such as shifts in the economy or President Donald Trump\u2019s move to end federal subsidies for electric vehicles.<\/p>\n
But Elo-Rivera said San Diego must prioritize its climate efforts lest the public\u00a0start to think the city didn\u2019t follow through on\u00a0the climate action plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be sure we\u2019re being as transparent as possible about the progress that we are and aren\u2019t making,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Under San Diego\u2019s climate action plan, the city is legally mandated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030 and to achieve net zero emissions by 2035.<\/p>\n
Climate Action Campaign says the setback in 2023 is making that first goal look awfully tough to achieve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe latest 2023 greenhouse gas inventory reveals emissions increased by 2% from 2022, reaching 8.52 million metric tons,\u201d the nonprofit says. \u201cTo meet the 2030 target of 4.2 million metric tons, emissions must be cut in half within just four years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heidi Vonblum, who oversees climate efforts as the city\u2019s planning director, said the city must focus on reducing all areas of emissions.<\/p>\n
\u201cFocusing on one strategy alone is going to be insufficient to meet our goals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But Vonblum also expressed concerns that some climate mandates force businesses to pass costs on to residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith all of the actions we take on our climate, we are very intentionally looking at what that does to the average citizen in the city,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s Climate Advisory Board expressed its own strong concerns about the new emissions data.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is critical the city take swift action to course-correct,\u201d the board said in a recent letter to Mayor Todd Gloria.<\/p>\n
The city has completed or is in the process of completing 75% of the 190 climate actions required under the 2022 climate action plan, which updated a previous version approved in 2015.<\/p>\n
The local chapter of the Sierra Club said the 2023 emissions data is particularly troubling with so many efforts already underway.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf emissions are rising while most actions are underway, this means the pace and flows of implementation are not yet aligned with the city\u2019s legally binding climate action plan goals,\u201d said the club\u2019s Lucy Terry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new city analysis shows greenhouse gas emissions increased in San Diego in 2023 \u2014 despite a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,23,205,100,13,74,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-73191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-local-politics","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-headlines","15":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73191","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=73191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}