2020 Climate Action Plan (CAP) Update and CEQA Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Significance Thresholds

2020 Climate Action Plan (CAP) Update and CEQA Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Significance Thresholds

The City proposes to adopt a 2020 CAP Update, which is organized into six pillars, each of which includes a long-term goal, measures, and foundational actions. Altogether, these CAP Update measures and foundational actions are intended to reduce communitywide GHG emissions by 43 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and by 66 percent below 1990 levels by 2035, which provides substantial progress toward meeting the City carbon neutrality goal while exceeding in time the State carbon neutrality goal. However, full implementation of the CAP Update would leave a gap of approximately 111,030 MTCO2e per year that would still need to be addressed to achieve carbon neutrality. As such, the CAP Update acknowledges that additional actions beyond those identified in the plan will be necessary to achieve carbon neutrality and, therefore, provides a mechanism for updating and adopting a new climate action plan connected to the biennial financial plan cycle. This allows for certainty in the updated schedule, ensures that the carbon neutrality work is directly tied to the City’s financial decision making and prioritization process and allows for constant integration of learning, best practices, and new measures and technologies to further the City toward meeting its goal of carbon neutrality. Furthermore, in order to execute the CAP, City staff would implement the following administrative actions: regularly update the CAP; monitor and report CAP implementation; ensure transparency by reporting GHG and CAP information to public disclosure programs; and develop a mitigation program for new development to illustrate consistency with the CAP. In addition, the City proposes to adopt quantitative CEQA GHG Emissions Thresholds for use in evaluating whether a plan or project’s GHG emissions would result in a potentially significant environmental impact under CEQA for plans or projects with pre-2030 buildout or initial operation years. The CEQA GHG Emissions Thresholds would be applied to plans or projects that cannot tier from the environmental analysis for the City’s CAP Update due to one of the following circumstances: - The plan or project would not be consistent with the 2014 General Plan land use and zoning designations for the project site and would result in greater GHG emissions than existing on-site development; or - The plan or project would not be consistent with the CEQA GHG Emissions Analysis Compliance Checklist.

San Luis Obispo

San Luis Obispo

Citywide, Southern California

Climate Action Plan, GHG Thresholds

Aesthetics, Agriculture and Forestry Resources, Air Quality, Biological Resources, Cultural Resources, Cumulative Effects, Geology/Soils, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Hazards & Hazardous Materials, Land Use/Planning, Mineral Resources, Noise, Population/Housing, Public Services, Recreation, Transportation, Tribal Cultural Resources, Wildfire, Energy, Utilities

California Air Resources Board (ARB), California Department of Conservation (DOC), California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Central Region 4 (CDFW), California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), California Department of Parks and Recreation, California Department of Transportation, District 5 (DOT), California Department of Transportation, Division of Aeronautics (DOT), California Department of Water Resources (DWR), California Energy Commission, California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES), California Highway Patrol (CHP), California Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC), California Natural Resources Agency, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Central Coast Region 3 (RWQCB), California State Lands Commission (SLC), Department of Toxic Substances Control, Office of Historic Preservation, State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Water Quality, State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Water Rights