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ClimatePlan and SB 375
In 2006, the California legislature passed AB 32, the Global Warming
Solutions Act, which requires California to reduce its greenhouse gas
emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. California’s Climate
Action Plan cites smart land use and intelligent transportation systems
as the second largest source of potential emissions reductions. SB 375
identifies clear strategies to reduce emissions through housing and transportation
planning decisions and funding mechanisms.
Specifically, SB 375 will:
•
Require the regional transportation agencies in the state’s major
metropolitan areas to adopt a “preferred growth scenario” that
would designate housing sites for all the population growth of a region
within the region, achieve greenhouse gas reductions set for each region
by the Air Resources Board, and identify farmland and habitat and exclude
it from development areas from the greatest extent possible.
•
Create an incentive for the preferred growth scenario to be implemented
by awarding transportation funding only for projects that are consistent
with the preferred growth scenario.
•
Create an incentive for the preferred growth scenario by providing for
improved treatment under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
of development projects that are located in cities that have adopted
the preferred growth scenario as a local land use plan.
•
Require sophisticated transportation modeling that will more accurately
account for the impacts of land use choices on transportation.
What's at Stake
Transportation alone accounts for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions in
the Bay Area. By designing tight-knit, walkable neighborhoods with
homes, shops, and jobs near transit, local governments can have a huge
impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But without incentives such
as
those proposed in SB 375, communities will just continue with business
as usual – sprawling development farther from urban centers, which
creates longer and longer commutes and forces people to drive for even
the most basic errands.
If we continue our current poorly-planned development patterns, increased
auto travel will outweigh any benefit we get from greener vehicle and
fuel technologies, and our greenhouse gas emissions will go up, not down.
Increased emissions put the Bay Area at risk of severe droughts, more
heat-related deaths, flooding from sea level rise, and economic damage
to agriculture and other industries.
What You Can Do
Ask your state legislators and Governor Schwarzenegger to support SB
375.
Click here to
find your legislator's contact information.
Campaign Update
June 2008
In April, the Land Use subcommittee of the Climate Action Team released its report, which included all three of the main points of ClimatePlan’s platform: invest in climate-friendly growth, plan regionally for emissions reductions, and offset the climate impacts of high-emission growth. At the annual symposium of the California Air Resources Board, these points were generally agreed on by a broad spectrum of constituencies. Greenbelt Alliance also made the land use-climate change connection as speakers at several spring events: the Transportation and Land Use Coalition annual summit, the EcoCity conference, and the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities quarterly meeting.
On June 26, the Air Resources Board will release its draft Scoping Plan for AB32 implementation, and will hold three public hearings in July on the draft plan. Throughout the state, ClimatePlan is mobilizing local elected officials, regional agencies, infill developers, and businesses to support land use as a core strategy to address climate change. Greenbelt Alliance is taking the lead on organizing in the Bay Area.
November/December 2007
Greenbelt Alliance worked within ClimatePlan,
a statewide network of organizations focused on the impacts
of land use policy on climate change,
to produce a West Coast release of the new report, Growing Cooler:
the Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change. The event
was covered by several newspapers throughout the state and also on Channel
7 in the
Bay Area. Greenbelt Alliance’s Senior Policy Advocate, Stephanie
Reyes, was featured in the Channel 7 report. One challenge to ensuring
that local land use policies (including general plans, specific plans,
and individual development proposals) take climate change impacts into
account is the lack of a simple method to quantify the greenhouse gas
emissions from various land use scenarios. Greenbelt Alliance has begun
creating an inventory of available greenhouse gas quantification tools
and is seeking funding to partner with an academic institution to develop
a simple method that advocates can use to evaluate the climate impacts
of different development proposals.
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