We know that Encinitas Action has been in your inbox a lot lately. And we’re reaching out today because the City Council has a critical decision to make on the Climate Action Plan.
🌊 Three years of work. Three workshops. 200+ public comments. Over $100k spent. And this Wednesday’s Special Meeting at 4pm, Council could water down the whole thing based on a Cost Analysis spreadsheet.
Here’s what’s happening: Council is meeting to decide which of the 32 measures in the proposed updated Climate Action Plan survive. A vocal group of climate deniers — some with documented ties to groups funded by fossil fuel businesses — has been showing up to meetings pushing Council to gut it, using a Benefit-Cost Analysis as cover.
The problem: staff has said outright that analysis isn’t supposed to be used that way. It is meant to help prioritize implementation and is not meant to justify eliminating measures. We maximize our economic benefits with these measures because they accomplish many city goals and will save us money in the long run. It is more costly to retroactively respond to climate-related damages that to proactively implement measures to avoid the worst climate scenarios.
And two of the highest-impact measures (Community Power membership + building decarbonization) deliver 80% of the plan’s total reductions for next to no cost. Those are exactly what’s at risk.
We are facing the strongest El Nino likely ever recorded. We are already seeing significant beach erosion (Grandview beach access closed on Friday; Carlsbad just declared an emergency for Highway 101 due to beach erosion) and will likely have heavy flooding and additional beach erosion throughout Encinitas this winter.
While Encinitas alone will not reverse the environmental degradation that burning fossil fuels has caused, we have a long-established plan for doing our part to reduce the damage. Let’s not stick our heads in the cobble (because the sand is disappearing) and reduce our efforts!
What you can do:
Email City Council by noon, Wednesday, September 23. Click on the button below, which will allow you to send an email to our city council members and ask them to approve the updated CAP. (The email is pre-written, but you can change the wording and/or add your own thoughts. Don’t forget to add your name at the end.)
Attend the meeting and consider giving public comment (Wednesday, September 23 @ 4pm, Council Chambers, 505 S. Vulcan Ave).
Encinitas’ coastline, canyons, and climate future are worth showing up for. Three years of community input got us this far. Let’s finish the job. Speak up, send that email, and help keep Encinitas resilient for the long haul. 🌊
— Encinitas Action
P.S. Please share this message with your friends so they can email the city council as well!