Re/Action on Climate Protection

News from Climate Protection Campaign

Climate Protection Campaign has been working with all nine municipalities in Sonoma County, California to:

• create inventories of GHG emissions
• set GHG emissions reduction targets
• create climate action plans (CAP) to reach those targets
• implement the CAPs
• monitor progress

At this date, all of the Sonoma County municipalities, as well as the County government, have completed greenhouse gas inventories. Eight of the nine municipalities, as well as the County government, have set GHG reduction targets for both municipal operations and for the community. The community target being adopted is aggressive: 25% below 1990 levels by the year 2015.

Several of the municipalities have started their climate action plans. The County of Sonoma has nearly completed its plan. Climate Protection Campaign has an energy tracking system in place that contains four years of energy use data for all municipal accounts for all cities in the county. This database is being updated every quarter so that reports can be generated that show energy consumption and GHG emissions for each city.

Action on Climate Protection

Hello, Climate Protection Campaign is launching our blog. This blog is intended to stimulate discussion about what can be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are currently working on projects at the local level, but we advocate action at all levels: local, state, federal and international.

What we want to do in this blog is to discuss solutions. We want to know what is working elsewhere in the world...and we want to share our experiences with what is working here in Sonoma County.

Although we will post articles on science and links to basic climate science, our aim is not primarily to discuss the science of global warming and climate change. We are not climate scientists, but we view the science of global warming as basically settled. We have adopted and endorse the findings of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which are that:

• The planet is warming
• Most of the warming in the past 100 years is caused by humans (anthropogenic)
• The human activities most responsible for warming are emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and deforestation.
• Emissions of GHGs that are causing global warming are primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels.
• Significant reduction in GHG emissions is necessary to prevent dangerous changes to the global climate.

In addition to the findings of the IPCC, our view is that meaningful reductions must be accomplished as quickly as possible in order to stabilize the level of atmospheric CO2 as low as possible.

We are looking forward to engaging in discussion with you about how to solve the climate crisis.