Long Beach Climate Action Plan 'Way Past Due'

LONG BEACH, CA — The Long Beach City Council unanimously approved the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions and better prepare for the current climate crisis Tuesday.

The 402-page report outlines Long Beach's plans to meet California's emissions requirements that were first introduced with Senate Bill 32 in 2016. This includes the city's goal to reduce 192,659 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and the Water Department's switch to 100% green power this year.

The current plan has been years in the making, and many city organizations have been calling for the city to declare a climate emergency and halt oil drilling.

“This is not a perfect plan … But it is an enormous step forward,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said in the meeting.

The CAAP puts more emphasis on walkable communities and the usage of public transit to reduce the use of private vehicles. Many commenters at the meeting said this current plan ignores the oil and gas operations in the city.

Kenny Allen of Sunrise Long Beach, a community group dedicated to stopping climate change, said Long Beach City's current gas and oil usage is three times larger than what everybody else in the city uses.

"I'm glad [the approval] happened, but it's way past due. It's really important to stop making things worse," Allen said. "We've got a lot of work to do in protecting residents from the way the current climate crisis is progressing."

Long Beach's plan says extreme heat, rising sea levels, drought and air pollution are expected to worsen for the rest of the century. These issues already heavily affect Long Beach, with Naples, Belmont Shore and the Penninsula at risk of flooding from sea level rise by 2030.

With the CAAP, the city plans to achieve "net-carbon neutrality" by 2045. Long Beach 350, a group of 18 different community groups in Long Beach, said this goal is "far short of the state's goals and what we know is necessary," in a statement sent to the city in May.

Long Beach 350 also sent a document to city officials in April that outlines 12 different recommendations to improve the CAAP. Some recommendations include implementing better climate justice principles, ending fossil fuel extraction in Long Beach and replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy by 2030.

The city expects to reduce tens of thousands of tons of emissions through recycling and green-waste programs that would keep nearly 40,000 metric tons of emissions from landfills.

To meet these goals, Long Beach city will create a Climate Action Office to implement the CAAP. Also, all projects in Long Beach will have to complete a CAAP checklist to ensure their greenhouse gas reductions.