Category Archives: Climate emergency

By Roger Straw, May 26, 2020

Benicia City Councilmembers discussed, amended and passed a Climate Emergency Resolution on May 19, 2020.

Here is Mayor Patterson’s Original Sept 2019 DRAFT resolution.
Here is a REDLINE version, showing how the Subcommittee’s abbreviated May 2020 proposed resolution was further amended by Council on May 19.
Here is the FINAL Resolution, passed on May 19

Below you will find the 29-minute video of Council deliberations leading to passage of the resolution. Changes in the proposed resolution include:

- Mayor Patterson re-inserted a strong paragraph on Benicia’s Climate Action Plan, goals and past efforts: “WHEREAS, as outlined in the Benicia Climate Action Plan it is the goal of the City to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create green jobs, and prepare for the impacts of climate change on public health, infrastructure, the economy, ecosystems, and public spaces in our community, and Benicia has repeatedly upheld this mission through resolutions to protect the environment and divest from extractive industries…”
- Vice Mayor Strawbridge and Councilmember Largaespada added several amendments. One promotes Benicia business interests and the interests of other Solano County cities, and two others soften the aspirational language: “actively reduce” rather than “end” Citywide greenhouse gas emissions; and transition to electric vehicles “where economically feasible.”
- Mayor Patterson and Councilmember Young expressed mild discomfort over some of the amendments, but all suggestions were accepted and the resolution passed unanimously.

Benicia City Council, Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, Climate emergency, Greenhouse gas emissions

Benicia City Council unanimously adopts Climate Emergency Resolution

May 24, 2020 Roger Straw

Benicia Herald, by Galen Kusic, Editor, May 24, 2020 (No link, only available in the print edition.)

Climate Emergency - Greenpeace International — Climate Emergency – Greenpeace International

At the Sept. 3, 2019 Council meeting the City Council agreed to discuss a request from Mayor Elizabeth Patterson considering the adoption of a Climate Emergency Resolution. The request was discussed again on Feb. 4 at a Special City Council meeting, where a subcommittee was formed consisting of Councilmembers Tom Campbell and Steve Young.

[BENINDY EDITOR’S NOTE: See the proposed resolution here, noting that this does not contain Council’s amendments. I have requested the amended resolution and will post it when it is released by the City Clerk. See also the accompanying Staff Report here.]

“The world’s changed since I first brought this forward,” said Patterson. “Who would have guessed…it is actually very interesting for us to contemplate this kind of situation with a pandemic which has been described as one of the consequences of climate warming.”

Cities are adopting these resolutions to end city-wide greenhouse gas emissions. The resolution highlights the need to combat climate change, including that Benicia is specifically vulnerable to sea-level rise, storm surge and coastal erosion, which are all enhanced by extreme weather events that cause increased flooding.

The resolution declares that an existential climate emergency threatens Benicia, the region, state, nation, civilization, humanity and the natural world. The resolution calls for a city-wide mobilization effort to reverse global warming and appropriate financial and regulatory assistance from Solano County, state and federal authorities to end city-wide greenhouse gas emissions while safely drawing down carbon from the atmosphere quickly.

“I think we saw this as more of a global aspirational document,” said Young. “The only thing we wanted to change in it was to localize it to some degree.”

The subcommittee added a clause at the end for the city to promote a more sustainable future, like eventually moving to an all-electric fleet.

Vice Mayor Christina Strawbridge and Councilmember Lionel Largaespada both asked for small amendments to the resolution, including not making undue burdens on businesses to attain reduction of greenhouse gas, while implementing policies that are economically feasible.

The resolution is designed to protect the community’s health and safety while also protecting and enhancing the environment.

A resident’s public comment stated that the council should not be focusing on climate change during a pandemic, but Patterson shot back that the pandemic is exactly why immediate action needs to be taken toward combating the climate emergency.

“We now from the early science of COVID-19 that one of the principle challenges for recovery and surviving an infection, particularly in older people, is the air quality,” she said. “We know there’s a direct link to our goal to reduce carbon which contributes to air quality.”

The council unanimously voted for the resolution.

Climate emergency, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Keeping Watch on Earth News

Here’s what a coronavirus-like response to the climate crisis would look like

April 13, 2020 Roger Straw

Los Angeles Times, by Sammy Roth, March 30, 2020

Both the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are global crises with the power to derail economies and kill millions of people. Society has moved far more aggressively to address the coronavirus than it has the climate crisis. But some experts wonder if the unprecedented global mobilization to slow the pandemic might help pave the way for more dramatic climate action.

Leah Stokes, a political scientist at UC Santa Barbara, pointed out that aggressive steps to reduce planet warming emissions — such as investing in solar and wind power, switching to electric cars and requiring more efficient buildings — wouldn’t be nearly as disruptive to everyday life as the stay-at-home orders that have defined the novel coronavirus response. [continued – view article in PDF format…]

Benicia City Council, Benicia Climate Action Plan, Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, Climate emergency

Benicia City Council to consider Climate Emergency Resolution Tues, Feb 4, 4pm

February 2, 2020 Roger Straw

Quarterly Study Session to discuss five requests made by Council members

You may want to attend! Benicia’s City Council will meet with staff and the public on Wednesday, to consider five action items requested previously, in context of overall Council priorities. See complete list with links more below.

Of particular interest will be item 4, “Two-Step Request from Mayor Patterson on adopting a Climate Emergency Resolution“. Mayor Patterson submitted this request last summer, with a requested Initial Council Meeting date of July 16, 2019. The “Emergency” request was not brought for Council’s First Step consideration until September 3, 2019. At that meeting, after hearing support from residents Constance Beutel, Marilyn Bardet, Gretchen Burgess, Steve Goetz, Pat Toth-Smith and Kathy Kerridge, Council discussed the request and recommended that it be brought forward for further study “at a future workshop”. (see item 14.B in the 9/3/19 minutes). So that next step is this Tuesday.

(Editor’s note: I am not sure, but my review of the Staff Report and Rules of Procedure seem to suggest that Tuesday’s Study Workshop is NOT to be considered the Second Step in our Two-Step procedure. A Council member’s request for DISCUSSION and action on a City “policy matter” requires two yes votes at Council.)

For more on Climate Emergency, including background on Benicia’s consideration, see Benicia Independent on climate emergency. Also see Mayor Patterson’s highly informative E-Alert from September 4, 2019.

From the 1/4/2020 agenda on the City website:

10.A – QUARTERLY POLICY ISSUES STUDY SESSION (City Manager)

The City Council has agreed to discuss various “Two-Step” requests made by individual members of the City Council at the Quarterly Policy Issues Study Session described in the City Council Rules of Procedure (Attachment 1).

To assist with Council deliberations, staff has included an updated copy of the Council’s priorities for the current fiscal year as summarized in the Work Plan 2019-20 (Attachment 2).

Five topics have been approved by the Council for further discussion and are presented in this report (Attachments 3-7); they follow:

1. Penalties for Excessive Residential Water Use;
2. Adoption of a Climate Emergency Resolution;
3. Preparation of an Advisory Measure related to Cannabis Dispensaries for the November 2020 ballot;
4. Installation of Rainbow Crosswalks; and
5. A request to Repurpose and Update the Traffic, Bicycle & Pedestrian Safety Committee.

Recommendation: Review the two-step process and the updated Work Plan 2019-20, and then discuss each of the five topics described (Attachments 3-7) and provide direction to staff.

Staff Report – Quarterly Policy Issues Study Session

The Benicia Independent ~ Eyes on the Environment / Benicia news & views