Sac County's Climate Change Task Force wants to hear from you!
MEET SACRAMENTO COUNTY'S CLIMATE CHANGE TASK FORCE
On December 16, 2020, the Board of Supervisors (BOS) adopted a Resolution declaring a climate emergency and directing the formation of a permanent Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force.
On March 23, 2022 (the County again demonstrating it's sense of urgency regarding climate change...[this is sarcasm]), the BOS approved a resolution that set the Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force (Task Force) compensation and composition, directed the Sustainability Manager to begin a public application process to fill member seats, and endorsed the guiding principles and scope of work. The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, at its Aug. 9 meeting, voted to appoint 13 members to the newly created Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force.
The composition of the members is listed below:
6 Technical Expertise Members - specific issue areas: Agriculture, Air, Built Environment, Economics, Energy, and Transportation
6 Environmental Justice Members
1 Youth Member
The Task Force's overall mission: provide input, guidance, oversight and assistance to the Sustainability Manager and to serve as an advisory body to the County. The Task Force is a partner and will be utilized to maximize the effectiveness of County staff efforts, particularly with regard to the equitable and inclusive sharing of ideas and public input.
The Task Force will provide expert and community advice on the mobilization of public and private resources necessary to implement a climate and sustainability plan that identifies and integrates current and future actions necessary to achieve an equitable, sustainable and resilient economy and transition to countywide carbon neutrality by 2030 and beyond.
The scope of work shall be framed upon the principles of equity and be conducted with urgency.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Attend a meeting: The Task Force meets once per month on the 2nd Thursday at 6pm
Here is a guide for how to access & participate in meetings
This guide includes a draft meeting agenda as an example of what to expect at the meetings
You can find a link in this guide to schedule a meeting with the Task Force Chair, Timothy Irvine
Timothy can also be reached directly at this email: timothy.irvine.mppa@gmail.com
View Task Force meeting agendas & information
The Task Force also has several Transportation Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) meetings scheduled in the areas of Transportation and Residential Energy.
Below is a list of upcoming residential energy TAP meetings:
June 2, 2023, 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM at North Highlands-Antelope Library - Meeting Room, 4235 Antelope Rd, Antelope, CA 95843
June 3, 2023, 12:00 PM to 2:30 PM at Martin Luther King, Jr. Library - Meeting Room, 7340 24th St Bypass, Sacramento, CA 95822
June 16, 2023, 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM at Valley Hi-North Laguna - Meeting Room, 7400 Imagination Pkwy, Sacramento, CA 95823
June 17, 2023, 12:00 PM to 2:30 PM at Arcade Library - Meeting Room, 2443 Marconi Ave, Sacramento, CA 95821
WHAT SUPPORT IS NEEDED
Members of the Task Force want public input that emphasizes equity and environmental justice as it moves ahead with the initial work of developing recommendations for the County Board of Supervisors on cutting emissions and adapting to global warming.
Members want to hear from YOU (and the community more broadly) about what environmental issues are impacting your life, neighborhood, family, friends, etc. They want to uplift the community's voice in discussions around climate & environmental justice at the County level, and to empower residents of Sacramento County to get involved and participate in these planning meetings as much as possible!
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TASK FORCE'S IMPORTANT WORK
This Task Force is fairly unique, and fairly new. It was formed in late 2022, but initially created as a result of the Climate Emergency Declaration in 2020, which happened during a wave of thousands of municipalities worldwide declaring climate emergencies and pushing their governments to acknowledge and act on the imminent threat of climate change.
Below is the first section of the 2020 resolution
In the simplest terms: the goal is to help our county survive climate change
This Task Force's job is largely to set up and maximize equitable public input into the County's plan to survive climate change, and they want to hear from its residents
Their job is ALSO to ensure that we can tell the County Supervisors "this is what these communities say they want" when the Task Force makes recommendations to the Board
So, the Task Force has a broad scope. They are the focal point for equitable public input in writing a Climate Emergency Response Plan, or CERP
That CERP is a very ambitious document that recommends to the Board of Supervisors how to cut emissions all the way to zero, and also adapt our County to intensifying global warming and the dangers that will bring
The CERP is separate from the ongoing County Climate Action Plan, or CAP. The CAP, in its current form, leaves in place at least 2.8 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent emitted per year. The CERP is supposed to go well beyond that
The Task Force is composed of 13 people total, and they have an explicit emphasis on youth, environmental justice, and including historically excluded groups
They ALSO have a mandate to specifically focus on the unincorporated County's four Environmental Justice (EJ) areas: North Highlands, North Vineyard, West Arden-Arcade, and South Sacramento
The Task Force's jurisdiction is only the unincorporated county, which is the biggest population center and has the most emissions overall, and the highest emissions per capita
Like other boards and commissions, this Task Force is an advisory body and ultimately the Board of Supervisors has the power to implement or totally ignore what they recommend.
TO THAT END: the hard working folks on this Task Force hope to stand up panels that convene experts and environmental justice advocates to develop the substance of recommendations in key issue areas, and to hear from, uplift, and incorporate the needs and demands of communities (in the impacted areas that they have jurisdiction over) into policy recommendations.