Belmont has made progress on its climate goals over the last eight years, but court rulings, new legislation and uncertain federal funding are forcing the city to get creative on how it achieves ambitious state goals by 2030.
Per California’s Senate Bill 32, cities are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40% less than 1990 levels by 2030. Like many cities, it’s not likely Belmont will achieve that target, however, it’s still made progress in cutting emissions overall. According to a recent staff report, Belmont’s greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 28% between 2005 and 2023 and exceeded its 2020 target.
“From 2005, we’ve made some really significant improvements. A lot of that is due to electricity going from fossil fuel sources to renewable sources,” Ryan Gardner, director of climate action and decarbonization at Rincon Consultants, said. “There was a 95% reduction in electricity emissions from 2005 to 2023. Solid waste also went down significantly, by 41%.”
Emissions from on-road transportation in Belmont — which represents the largest source of emissions in the city — also decreased by 15%, largely attributable to more efficient car technology and higher adoption of electric vehicles and hybrids, Gardner added.
The city adopted a climate action plan in 2017, and, since then, several initiatives and policies have proved successful in the GHG reduction. Belmont is part of a plan with Peninsula Clean Energy — the county’s public electricity provider — that provides its municipal facilities with fully renewable electricity. Bike lane improvement projects and the implementation of LED street lights and building retrofits were also identified as factors in the emissions reductions.
However, progress has slowed, with “minimal emissions reductions “occurring between 2021 and 2023, the staff report added. Over the last several years, most jurisdictions in San Mateo County, including Belmont, have baked all-electric standards into their energy codes for new buildings. They are sometimes referred to as reach codes as they go beyond state-level mandates.
But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals finalized a decision last year that led many cities, including Belmont, to suspend their reach codes to avoid legal challenges. And more recently, Assembly Bill 130 was recently signed into law this summer, which prohibits jurisdictions from passing new reach codes until 2031.
“That is a potential challenge for us as we look for ways to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from that 40% emissions that is existing natural gas usage,” Gardner said. “We’re also just in really uncertain times about the future of federal incentives, with things like the Inflation Reduction Act that was providing tens of thousands of dollars to homeowners and building owners to do retrofits and EV incentives.”
Still, the state’s new building code goes into effect at the beginning of next year, which heavily favors all-electric construction. Gardner added that regardless of federal actions, the state is likely to fill in much of the funding gaps to meet climate goals.
The city is working on updating its 2017 plan, with the council tentatively planning for adoption in fall 2026.
(4) comments
ALL San Mateo County cities are failing in their Climate Action Plans - mostly because they have gone MIA the last 20 years.
ALL San Mateo County cities have a three point plan:
- Electrification - electrify everything through reach codes, municipal codes, incentives, etc. and then use Peninsula Clean Energy as a "Carbon Laundromat". The professional term is "greenwashing".
- Transportation - the hope was to have all cars being electric by 2035, so they did nothing there either.
- City Hall - they used "climate action" as an excuse to give themselves the nicest office upgrades possible and than handed out awards to themselves how "green" and "LEED" they are.
We can't look at what they say, we can however look at what they do.
Here is of course the real litmus test of "green":
- Does a city have nice sidewalks and a solid bike lane network?
- Does a city have bus lanes or at least solid bus shelters?
- Does a city have a solid Safe-Routes-To-School project to teach the next generation sustainability?
That would be a NO and a NO and a double NO for Belmont on "sustainable transportation".
Belmont might just be one of the worst Bay Area cities when it comes to "green".
easygerd - another bone of contention " how "green" and "LEED" they are". These are silly, concocted number games. So the City of Belmont can plant trees somewhere in the world, install bicycle racks and insure that building materials are recycled or recyclable. By adding points for each, however stupid, irrational and outrageous they are, a building can qualified for a LEED certificate. By omitting bicycle racks for example, it can be downgraded to Silver from Platinum. Whoopie!, at UC we had several highly paid bean counters to make sure that all new construction would qualify for Platinum. They spent days on meetings and reporting. It was besides boring, also disgusting and a waste of tuition money. Every time I hear the UC system decrying the budget cuts, I think about those idiotic policies that serve no purpose whatever except, of course, among others, filling the pockets of LEED consultants.
This is the same Belmont that cut down several large trees along Ralston. These trees absorbed massive amounts of CO2 and were cut down ostensibly to reduce wild fire potential. Now, we have an ugly ravine on the south side that is almost scary for pedestrians to walk by. As Terence says, where are the numbers, and why should we pay any attention to the nonsense that comes from Sacramento? The 2030 goals will be challenged in Court anyway. Meantime the climate action industry is dragging on, costing us boat loads of money, and will not have an iota effect on the earth's temperature. Belmont to the rescue!
Interesting article… if there are alleged reductions in emissions, how about some raw numbers? And how are these numbers obtained? I’d like to see the methodology and even more so, I’d like to know how much taxpayer money was wasted to obtain this 40% figure. Regardless, vote NO on any measures to fund more of this boondoggle effort to control Mother Nature. Until California gets serious about forest and fire management, Belmont, or any other town, won’t make any progress. The climate industrial complex does nothing more than help funnel money from the poor to the rich. Meanwhile, I'd recommend putting more money in the budget to fight lawsuits.
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