Take heart, climate activists. Grassroots advocacy can work.
California has been a leader in climate action. Now, the (San Francisco) Bay Area Air Quality District (BAAQMD) has adopted a genuinely bold and concrete plan to achieve its and the state goal of 80% reduction of GHG’s by 2050 (compared to 1990). This first-of-its-kind plan is comprehensive with 85 specific measures, covering everything from refineries, to transportation, to buildings and homes, even to food choices.
The BAAQMD plan to clean the air while reducing climate-impacting greenhouse gas emissions is an important step toward solving three major problems simultaneously - air pollution mortality, global warming, and energy security. This is an important leap forward.
- Dr. Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University.
This plan wouldn’t have happened without the relentless, detailed efforts of Bay Area climate activists, especially 350 Bay Area (350BA) members, and particularly, the two leaders of the 350BA BayCAP campaign, Campaign Lead Janet Strömberg and 350BA Senior Policy Analyst Jed Holtzman
(both pictured). It has been years in the making. They led the effort to get the Air District to adopt the 80% by 2050 goal back in 2013. It’s good to have goals, but without a plan, it’s a wish.
Air Districts in California have a great deal of authority to regulate air pollution. The Bay Area even charges for CO2 emissions, but currently just ~5 cents per ton. This sort of regulatory work is painstaking. Powerful and litigious oil companies have fought climate action every step of the way (the Bay Area has 5 refineries). As unpaid volunteers versus full-time experts, these battles are very much David vs. Goliath.
While 350BA has grown enough with 22,000 supporters to recently provide Jed with some income, the vast majority of the wonky emissions technical research and discussions have been pro bono. It helped that Janet formerly worked for the Air District and knew how it works. Janet had this to say:
350 Bay Area first approached the Air District asking for real climate action like this about four years ago—today, after years of working with the agency, we are more than delighted to see them commit to this bold vision and comprehensive strategy. This plan commits the Bay Area to do our part for the carbon-free future, healthy air, and healthy planet that the vast majority of Bay Area residents want. The Air District's continued leadership going forward will be critical to making sure this plan gets implemented.
Jed, who is very active in the Clean Power SF and other efforts, said this:
The Air District has shown true leadership on addressing climate change with the adoption of this plan. With action across every sector of the economy and eighty-five different pollution control measures included, our region should be firing on all cylinders over the next several years to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, as a start toward eliminating them entirely. Our victory here shows that government can take productive actions to safeguard a stable and healthy future for our communities, and other metropolitan areas around the world should do the same.
Also heroes in the story are the BAAQMD staffers that wrote the plan and held several workshops across the Bay Area to involve the community (Back row: Christy Riviere, Henry Hilken, Dave Burch, Josh Pollack. Front row: Karen Kristiansson, Dave Vintze, Abby Young, Geraldina Grunbaum).
As one of the Air District Board members told an oil company worker: “This is where this region is going.”
You can see the press coverage here.
Disclosure: The author is the Communications Coordinator for 350 Bay Area.