After years of promises, Sacramento County is poised to bury climate action in bureaucracy

On Tuesday, we will learn if the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors is serious about combating climate change and supporting its own ambitious carbon neutrality goal, or if the board has been engaged in political theater all along.

In December 2020, county supervisors led by Phil Serna and Patrick Kennedy voted to declare a climate emergency in Sacramento County and identified ways the county could adapt. Supervisors Serna, Kennedy and Don Nottoli voted in favor, with supervisors Sue Frost dissenting and Susan Peters absent.

With the declaration, the supervisors set a goal of achieving carbon-neutrality in the county by 2030 and a deadline of 60 days to form a Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force. The board’s action was lauded by environmentalists at the time.

The trouble was the supervisors raised hopes with their adopted declaration, but then did nothing. It wasn’t until last fall that a long-promised Climate Action Plan finally materialized, and it was derided by local environmentalists as weak and over-reliant on environmentally-unfriendly sprawl to provide the county’s much-needed housing.

At that point, a group of local environmental organizations including 350 Sacramento, the Environmental Council of Sacramento and the Citizens Climate Lobby of Sacramento called for a deeper environmental analysis of the Climate Action Plan and for “the supervisors to take Sacramento County’s 2020 Climate Emergency Declaration seriously.”

It appears they have not.

The declaration adopted in December 2020 stated that the county should create, within 60 days of approval, a permanent Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force. Now, 418 days later, they’ve finally gotten around to it.

On Tuesday, county staff will present a plan that buries the key functions of the emergency declaration by assigning its important work to an unfunded, volunteer, citizen’s advisory group — contrary to explicit directions within the declaration.

The declaration stated that “County staff shall evaluate the resources necessary to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, and (…) County staff shall identify gaps and provide recommendations.”

Instead, much of this vital climate work would be assigned to a toothless task force, which will consist of seven voluntary members representing science and academia, air quality, agriculture, climate, economics, energy, environmental justice and transportation. A Sustainability Manager hired by the county last year, and who has several other assignments outside of the task force, will provide part-time support.

Members will serve two-year terms through monthly meetings, and are expected to develop a Climate Emergency Response Plan; determine how the Emergency Plan will integrate with the CAP; refine and implement the CAP’s mitigation measures; identify funding needed to achieve 2030 carbon neutrality; outreach to the agricultural community regarding climate-friendly practices, prepare annual reports and establish and facilitate technical advisory committees.

This scope of work is unrealistic for an unpaid, all-volunteer committee being led by a part-time manager.

Climate change is too important a topic for anyone — much less a local government home to more than 1.5 million people — to delegate to a committee of well-intentioned volunteers. If the county is genuine about committing resources to achieving carbon-neutrality by the end of the decade, it owes the residents of Sacramento County much more than a volunteer task force that is already being set up to fail.

This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.