Mountain View committee approves modeling of additional local decarbonization measures, directs five‑year roadmap toward 2045 goal

The Council Sustainability Committee on Nov. 6 voted to have staff model five additional local decarbonization measures and directed the project team to prepare a five‑year roadmap aimed at Mountain View's adopted 2045 decarbonization goal.

The committee's decision followed a presentation by staff and Cascadia Consulting Group that updated the city's decarbonization analysis and modeled the effects of state, regional and local policies. "We're experiencing setbacks, delays, or outright policy reversals at the regional, state, and federal levels," Danielle Lee, the city's chief sustainability and resiliency officer, told the committee. "Our hands are increasingly tied, and it feels like the levers for change that we have are disappearing before our eyes."

Cascadia's Haley Weinberg summarized the modeling. Under a business‑as‑usual scenario, the city's emissions could reach roughly 500,000 metric tons of…