{"id":24238,"date":"2012-09-17T19:00:41","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T02:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=24238"},"modified":"2018-02-01T22:19:26","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T22:19:26","slug":"filling-the-gaps-in-oaklands-climate-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/09\/17\/filling-the-gaps-in-oaklands-climate-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Filling the Gaps in Oakland’s Climate Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Study could help city prepare for impacts already on the way
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Oakland aims to shrink its carbon footprint by more than a third. But what about preparing for impacts already on the way?” credit=”Craig Miller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The City of Oakland is forging a comprehensive Energy and Climate Action Plan<\/a> aimed at mitigating climate change. Even by California standards; it’s ambitious, calling for a 36% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2020 (statewide emissions decreased 5.3% between 2005 and 2009<\/a>, the most recent year for which numbers are available). It also lays out the policies and programs needed to make it happen. What the plan doesn\u2019t answer is how the city will cope with the climate change that has already been set in motion.<\/p>\n

Enter a study prepared by Oakland\u2019s Pacific Institute<\/a> for the California Energy Commission, published in July but not widely circulated until this month. It fills in the holes in the city\u2019s approach by advancing \u201cclimate adaptation planning,\u201d in which local governments prepare for dealing with climate change on a short-and-long-term basis and across all segments of the population.<\/p>\n

[module align=”left” width=”half” type=”pull-quote”]”We\u2019re going to see significant impacts no matter what you do with greenhouse gases.”[\/module]<\/p>\n

\u201cOur concern was that we\u2019re already down the road a bit on climate change, and we\u2019re going to see significant impacts no matter what you do with greenhouse gases,\u201d said Brian Beveridge, co-director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project<\/a>, which helped prepare the report. \u201cSo we were looking at how will people react to climate change over the next fifty years, because we\u2019re definitely going to see it happen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that the city itself is blind to the issue. A chapter of its plan entitled, \u201cClimate Adaption and Increasing Resilience\u201d dedicates five pages out of 81 to the idea that a certain amount of climate change is inevitable and beginning to occur now \u2014 and that in addition to avoiding future impacts by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we\u2019ve got to learn to live with it.<\/p>\n

The chapter lays out a nice little suite of looming climate challenges for the city:<\/p>\n

\u201c…significantly decreased snowpack in the Sierra Mountains<\/a> (the source of most of Oakland\u2019s potable water supply); rising Bay and Delta waters; increased fire danger; greater frequency and intensity of heat events<\/a>; added stress on infrastructure<\/a>; pricing<\/a> and quality of life impacts; and ecological impacts.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The plan offers some potential solutions but leaves the details for another day.<\/p>\n

The Pacific Institute teamed up with the Oakland Climate Action Coalition<\/a>, a 50-member consortium housed at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, to nudge the city along. Its report identifies more than 50 specific strategies for building resilience and adaptability into local communities, organized by climate disaster. A sampling of the (admittedly intimidating) recommendations:<\/p>\n

Extreme heat<\/strong><\/p>\n