Berkeley climate action plan

Earlier this month Berkeley approved its climate action plan.

The Berkeley City Council has voted unanimously to adopt a climate action plan aimed at reducing the city's greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent by 2020.

City officials said the plan, approved Tuesday night, details strategies for enhancing sustainable transportation options, saving energy in buildings and creating green jobs.

Mayor Tom Bates said in a statement, "Berkeley is tackling the urgent crisis of climate change by acting locally. The City Council, community and staff have designed a bold climate action plan that is holistic in its approach to land use, transportation, energy efficiency, waste reduction, and community engagement."

The plan aims to bring Berkeley into compliance with Measure G, a 2006 initiative approved by 81 percent of the city's voters. It established an aggressive greenhouse gas reduction target of 80 percent by 2050.

City staff members estimate the plan will cost about $3 million in fiscal 2009 and $6.6 million in fiscal 2010.

Not evident in this brief report was the significant controversy around the plan spurred but media coverage just prior to the plan's original vote date stating the plan mandated retrofits costing Berkeley households upwards of $33,800 each.

But the picture was in fact more complex.

After almost three years of research, public input and planning, Burroughs unveiled the newest version of the 145-page plan at the City Council meeting on April 21. It was expected that in its mature form, the CAP would pass easily and move on to the environmental review phase. Instead, it met an unexpected backlash.
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Jones writes in her article that she simply took proposed efficiency strategies within the CAP document (such as replacing single-pane windows with double-panes), called up her local Home Depot, and tallied the grand total of every single efficiency measure mentioned.

Her egregiously inflated $33,800 figure over-estimates the number of retrofits needed per household and accounts for no incentive financing or subsidies.

Most critically, it ignores the fact that every house will be retrofitted on a completely customized basis, favoring cost-effectiveness above all. No building would be subject to every efficiency measure listed – in fact, no building would be subject to mandatory efficiency measures of any sort (at least for now).

Therein lies the biggest fallacy of all – none of the efficiency standards proposed in the CAP are mandates.

The document simply lists strategies that city officials and residents can consider pursuing. The CAP’s major recommendation (and goal) is that a collaborative community process be used to help reduce energy efficiency costs for residents, utilizing the guidelines and research provided by the CAP team.

There has simply been insufficient communication and education on the economic benefits of moving to the clean energy economy.