Encinitas council reviews draft Climate Action Plan, asks for targeted workshop on measures and funding

City staff on Wednesday presented a draft update to Encinitas’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) and an accompanying benefit-cost analysis, outlining targets, 32 proposed measures across seven strategy areas and an implementation funding picture that relies heavily on grant support.

"As a reminder, your recommended action tonight is to review the draft documents and then provide any input or direction to staff," Crystal Nara, the city’s sustainability manager, told the council as she introduced the draft plan and the consultants from the Energy Policy Initiative Center (EPIC).

The draft proposes two greenhouse-gas reduction targets anchored to the city’s 2016 inventory: 40 percent below 2016 emissions by 2030 and 85 percent below 2016 emissions by 2045. Staff presented a five-step update process that includes an updated inventory, target-setting, development of strategies and measures, identification of climate vulnerabilities and an implementation and monitoring plan.

The measures are grouped under seven strategies: building decarbonization; renewable energy; water efficiency; clean and efficient transportation; zero-emission equipment; zero waste; and carbon sequestration. Ryan Lampin, the city’s sustainability analyst, described the building sector measure BD5—decarbonization of existing buildings—as the single item with the highest 2045 greenhouse-gas reduction potential in the package.

The benefit-cost analysis (BCA) presented by EPIC showed a wide range of cost-effectiveness across measures. "Overall CAP update measures would have an average net cost of about $245 per metric ton reduced," Scott Anders, EPIC’s executive director, told the council, while noting a spectrum that ranged from a net benefit of about $500 per metric ton to a net cost above $22,000 per metric ton depending on the measure. He highlighted a set of roughly 10 measures that together make up about 80 percent of the modeled greenhouse-gas reductions and average roughly $60 per metric ton.

Staff and the consultant separated two fiscal analyses: an implementation cost analysis showing expected annual spending by funding source, and a benefit-cost analysis that examines cost-effectiveness per metric ton of CO2e reduced and participant-level financial impacts. Anders reported that roughly $4.3 million annually in implementation costs are contingent on grant funding, while $600,000 per year represents CAP-specific costs expected to fall to the city’s general fund and existing plans.

Council members pressed staff on modeling and assumptions, including how community emissions are measured and how the analysis treated potential grant and subsidy offsets. Staff said the inventory and forecast follow the SANDAG protocol used regionally and that the BCA took a conservative approach to subsidies, generally excluding uncertain future tax credits while showing sensitivity scenarios for reduced total costs.

The meeting drew a large public turnout: 14 speakers offered public comment. Supporters urged adoption and noted co-benefits such as public health, water savings and wildfire resilience; critics raised doubts about the science, questioned the local impact of municipal measures on a global problem, and warned of affordability impacts if certain measures become mandates. Several speakers emphasized that the BCA’s single dollar-per-ton metric does not capture many nonmonetary co-benefits.

Council members commended staff and the consultants for thorough work but asked for more detail before any adoption decision. Multiple councilors recommended prioritizing measures that are both high-impact and cost-effective—municipal solar, building decarbonization measures and certain transportation actions were cited as top candidates—and requested clearer tables showing which costs are assumed to be grant-funded vs. borne by the general fund or private participants.

Mayor Ellers said there were no mandates on the table that night and framed the presentation as an informational step: "There are no mandates tonight. This is about reviewing the recommended action." Councilors directed staff to return with a focused decision workshop—roughly two hours—to drill into individual measures, spell out co-benefits, show grant-assumption sensitivities and indicate where the city is simply meeting state minimum requirements versus where it would exceed them. Staff indicated the earliest feasible date for the follow-up would likely be in August.

No formal vote was taken on the draft CAP during the special meeting; council action amounted to guidance and a request for additional, measure-level detail and funding clarity.