San Luis Obispo Climate Action Planning

According to the Cities for Climate Protection campaign the goal of Milestone 2 is to adopt an emissions reduction target for the City. For the City of San Luis Obispo this has become a simple task due to the mandates under AB 32. AB 32 requires the City to have its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions levels reduced down to 1990 levels by the year 2020. Currently, it is assumed that in order for the city to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels there will need to be a reduction of 15% from the 2005 levels; 1% accounting for each year from 1990 to 2005, a total of 15 years.

As the GHG inventory was being put together for the city, several sectors were identified as having an impact on the amount of emissions the city produced. These categories of emissions are: Commercial & Industrial, Residential, Solid Waste, and Transportation. Transportation will be the most challenging sector to reduce emissions and it is the largest emitter for the City.