Effective Climate Action Plans Key to Cities' Ability To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Cities and counties are facing new challenges as federal and state regulators adopt greenhouse gas emission reductions targets and other new environmental performance standards to try to reverse the degradation of our environment and planet. We are entering an era of broad scale environmental accountability.

Achieving sustainability performance targets across complex and integrated social, ecological, and economic systems, such as cities and counties, requires new ways of engineering the way we interact with the environment. In turn, ecologically engineering the built environment requires new quantitative performance approaches to planning. It requires understanding and analyzing the complex, systemic relationships between the built and natural environment and capitalizing on the efficiencies that can be found through "whole systems" integrated design.

Against this backdrop, the evolution of regulations mandating reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change adaptation planning, such as California's pioneering Assembly Bill (AB) 32 and Senate Bill (SB) 375, have lead to increased pressure for both developers and governmental entities to better understand and adopt whole systems planning and design of new communities-and retrofit existing ones-that reduce GHG and achieve higher levels of environmental performance. Adding urgency to this mission is the growing mainstream concern and awareness among the public about the effects of climate change and the need for improved sustainability on a broader scale. Consequently, long-standing urban form, transportation, energy, and policy development practices are being rethought, reconsidered, and retooled in the United States and across the globe.

Creating a Climate Action Plan

To prepare for the implementation of AB 32 and SB 375, many cities across California are focused on creating climate action plans (CAPs) that provide both broad strategies and specific measures to reduce their carbon footprints. AB 32 (an overarching climate change bill) and SB 375 (implementing legislation for AB 32 that focuses on transportation and land use) are tandem measures signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger that require California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The two measures put California at the forefront of battling global warming in the United States.

The city of Irvine is emerging as one of the leaders in developing a sophisticated plan.

"Although climate action plans as they are being written today may have limitations since this is an entirely new endeavor for cities, not doing them is counterproductive for the battle against global warming. The city of Irvine has undertaken a comprehensive climate action plan that will be the foundation for the city's long-term carbon reduction initiatives and will also serve as a model for other cities. We believe it's a wise investment of time and money," said Chandra Krout, environmental programs administrator for the city of Irvine. "A climate action plan provides valuable information and modeling for a city that desires to reduce its carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions. The plan also underscores problem areas such as vehicle miles traveled as generated by commuting that need to be addressed, problems that might otherwise go unattended. With experience and a growing body of knowledge and expertise, climate action plans will only get better. Nevertheless, at this point in their evolution, a well executed climate action plan is still an important weapon in the battle against global warming."

What can other cities do? A stand-alone climate action plan will describe, in detail, the implementation measures required to achieve a city's or county's selected GHG reduction target. The CAP presents an accounting of the GHG reduction potential and the likely cost of each measure relative to the reduction target and allows for a city to adaptively manage the program in future years. Development of the CAP includes the following steps:

1) Inventory of potential measures that will result over time in a city-wide reduction of GHG emissions;

2) Research to identify the range of carbon reduction potential offered by each measure;

3) Research to identify the approximate cost range of each measure;

4) Ranking of each measure for both cost impact and effectiveness;

5) Building a scenario that achieves the reduction target using, first, low cost/highly effective measures and, last, if necessary, higher cost/lower effective measures.

This approach is consistent with the methodology our firm is employing to complete CAPs for Albany, Piedmont, Mountain View, Burbank, Citrus Heights, West Hollywood, Dublin, Mission Viejo, Union City, Alameda County, Solano County, and Yolo County. We recommend separating the CAP from the community's comprehensive plan due to the currently fast-evolving regulatory and technological environments. This is intended to provide a jurisdiction the flexibility to change its approach to achieving an enforceable GHG reduction target, if needed, without requiring a comprehensive plan amendment. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has revised its environmental review guidelines and thresholds to recognize the role of CAPs in planning comprehensively for GHG reductions.

Policy development must be focused on GHG emissions sectors from the GHG inventory over which the jurisdiction has control and the greatest emission reduction potential exists. Many of these programs will have over-arching environmental and socio-economic co-benefits and will relate to programs in other jurisdictional planning documents. Policy topics that may be applicable to a city or county include (but are not limited to): reduction of urban heat islands and urban forestry; water and energy conservation strategies; energy efficiency standards and green building incentives; renewable energy programs and incentives; public transportation, bicycle, and pedestrian infrastructure; retrofit of existing buildings for increased energy efficiency; urban infill and diversity of land uses; and public education.

Sustainable Systems Integration Model (SSIM)

Developing a climate action plan for a large, complex project or area is a daunting task. The combinations of efficiency measures, technologies, and products over multiple land uses, building types, and densities is unlimited and overwhelming for any developer or city staff. Often, financial resources are placed in areas that are easiest to understand and trendy rather than where they provide the best cost/benefit or add to an overall balanced approach. Ecological and longer term strategies often are the hardest to quantify and weigh against more tangible, hardware-oriented measures.

By modeling sustainability performance and costs of various measures at the building, district, and community scale, proprietary modeling tools we developed help construct a sound, defendable, and cost-effective whole systems sustainability program. Organized around core themes of mobility, energy, water, building technology, and carbon sequestration, the Sustainable Systems Integration Model (SSIM) starts by utilizing a GIS based modeling tool to compare the sustainability merits of alternative land use solutions for those areas of a jurisdiction undergoing comprehensive plan or specific/master plan modifications. The urban form of each land use alternative is evaluated through a variety of indicators to ascertain which has the lowest inherent carbon footprint, highest trip capture, connectivity, land use balance, etc. This is done using a business as usual (BAU) scheme as a straw man, and then comparing key performance indicators such as energy, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and GHG emissions between the plans until, ultimately, a preferred plan evolves. This allows the jurisdiction to seek a fundamentally higher level of sustainability based on land use mix, transportation structure, and plan form prior to applying additional carbon reduction measures.

The standard CAP process logically provides a comprehensive list of strategies that is relatively simple, prioritized, and generally cost effective. The primary shortcoming is that although it is based on empirically-based research, its findings are not highly site-specific, and are relatively general in detail. The idea is to provide a more finely-tuned, accurate, and implementable approach that expands the selection of strategies, looks at multiple levels of performance within each strategy, allows an unlimited number of combinations to be reviewed, and evaluates not only cost impacts to the jurisdiction, but also to private development, home affordability, and other cost impact centers. This enhanced process can add the following features to a carbon reduction strategy evaluation:

1) Evaluate multiple levels of performance for each carbon reduction strategy: Rather than have one line item for a strategy, for example residential retrofits, three alternative programs would be identified for up to four varying levels of participation, energy demand reduction, and cost. This would allow the identification of a "sweet spot" where the savings from retrofitting best offsets the incremental cost.

2) More detailed cost estimation: Rather than generalizing an overall cost range for a strategy, costs would be identified at a higher level of precision and aligned with each of the four alternative performance levels within each strategy.

3) Cost benefit analysis: For each of the performance levels within a strategy, a ratio of cost to environmental benefit would be calculated. Other metrics such as carbon reduction per $1,000 invested, return on investment, life cycle cost analysis and simple payback could also be provided for each strategy performance level.

4. Evaluation of multiple carbon reduction master programs: Rather than compiling a list of strategies by general economic and efficiency rating until the target is met, the enhanced process allows six to twelve alternative combinations of both overall strategies and performance alternatives within each strategy, to be compiled and tested for total GHG reduction; total energy demand reduction; cost impact to housing and commercial affordability in new developments; total cost and cost per building to building owners for retrofit programs; cost to the jurisdiction for program development and implementation; and phasing of programs over time to achieve ultimate targets.

The process is currently being used for the city of San Marcos, the California General Plan update in San Diego County, and was used on a carbon reduction prototype study presented to Governor Schwarzenegger's office and the California Air Resources Board as a part of refining the SB 375 legislation. The methodology has also been completed on the following large scale, new community development projects:

• El Rancho San Benito, San Benito County, CA (6,800 units, 11,000 acres)

• East Edisto New Town, Charleston, SC (15,000 units, 72,000 acres)

• Glenroy, Melbourne, Australia (4,500 units, 500 hectares)

• Tanggu, China (50,000 units, 750 hectares)

Complete, precise, and comprehensive modeling of man-made and natural systems on jurisdictions and large districts is extremely difficult due to their complexity and our current elementary understanding of complex natural systems. However, acknowledging those we do understand and tracking obvious linkages between systems can give a more complete picture of the offsetting and compounding impacts of prospective sustainability strategies. Recent definitions of sustainability underscore the importance of balance between the physical, social, and economic dimensions. Modeling approaches similar to SSIM allow ecosystem integrity and services aspects to stand side by side with conventional mechanical and operational GHG reduction strategies and result in a more robust and affordable climate action plan.

We are in a fast-moving world where protecting our planet has taken on new and critical urgency. But even with the ever-changing complexities of the sustainability movement, we believe that the preparation of a CAP today will allow a city or county to set the stage and help define the sustainable landscape as other jurisdictions in the region seek to comply with such regulations as AB 32, SB 375, and other sustainability initiatives in the coming years. Now is the time to be a leader, not a follower.