Title
Adoption of Resolution Adopting the 2025 Climate Action and Resiliency Plan (CARP) Mid-Cycle Update and Accept the 2024 Annual Report.
This project is categorically exempt from further environmental review pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines Section 15308 (Actions by Regulatory Agencies for Protection of the Environment). (Planning, Building, and Transportation 20962710) [Not heard on March 18, 2025]
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Jennifer Ott, City Manager
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of this staff report is to request the City Council to adopt the 2025 Climate Action and Resiliency Plan (CARP) mid-cycle update and accept the 2024 CARP Annual Report. The mid-cycle update includes an update to the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP), which will need to be adopted by City Council following review by California Office of Emergency Services.
In October of 2024, City Council provided feedback on a mid-term update to the CARP vision, goals and strategies, and key priority implementation plans. Consistent with City Council feedback, staff has completed a mid-cycle update to evaluate progress and to identify outstanding barriers to meeting the CARP goals. The update includes a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and incorporates updates to the City of Alameda’s (City) Climate Adaptation and Hazard Mitigation Plan, which will be approved by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as the City’s Local Hazard Mitigation Plan. The mid-cycle update also incorporates recent and ongoing local initiatives and plans by the City and regional agencies, as well as new State laws and initiatives. The updated vision, strategies, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory, and action plans are intended to guide the City and community in meeting its ambitious climate goals. The 2025 CARP, including the LHMP, can be found at www.alamedaca.gov/CARP <http://www.alamedaca.gov/CARP>.
To guide ongoing CARP implementation, the 2024 Annual Report highlights key progress on plan implementation during 2024. The 2024 CARP Annual Report also serves as the annual report for the Climate Adaptation and Hazard Mitigation Plan.
BACKGROUND
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Over Time
A new GHG emissions inventory was developed for 2022, the latest year for which complete data was available. The inventory showed that on-road transportation is the City’s largest source of GHG emissions with 54% of total emissions. The second largest source was natural gas use in buildings with 31% of total emissions. The remaining 14% of emissions are made up of solid waste, off-road transportation, and water and wastewater.
Between 2005 and 2022, Alameda’s total emissions decreased by approximately 29% despite population and service population growth. Alameda is over halfway to achieving its goal of reducing emissions by 50% by 2030. This reduction has mainly been driven by Alameda Municipal Power’s (AMP) shift to providing 100% clean energy in 2020 and lower transportation emissions (by about 25%) due to cleaner vehicles, reduced vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and more efficient off-road equipment. Natural gas emissions also decreased by about 6% due to reduced residential natural gas usage.
Emissions are expected to continue to decrease because of State policies, but not enough to meet CARP targets without also implementing additional local measures. Projected emissions, adjusted for State policy, are estimated to decrease an additional 10% from 2022 to 2030. To meet CARP targets, an additional 11% emissions reduction needs to be achieved by local policies.
2019-2024 CARP Accomplishments
Alameda’s CARP was adopted in 2019 with the goal of equitably reducing the City’s GHG emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving net zero carbon emissions. CARP implementation is reducing communitywide emissions and the greenhouse gas emissions inventory completed for 2022 shows the City is on track to meet its climate goals, largely as a result of AMP delivering 100% clean electricity; however, additional attention and effort are needed over the next five years to achieve CARP’s 2030 goals.
Key CARP accomplishments for the first five years of implementation include,
• 100% clean electricity provided by AMP;
• Hired a Sustainability and Resilience Manager to implement CARP recommendations, dedicated a half time position to manage sea level rise adaptation projects and hired a CivicSpark fellow to provide additional staff capacity to the Sustainability and Resilience Program;
• Design of De-Pave Park and Approved Concept designs for Oakland Alameda Estuary Adaptation Project and Bay Farm Island Adaptation Project;
• Convened the Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee (OAAC) in 2021 to collaboratively accelerate sea level rise adaptation, protect and restore water quality, habitat and recreation and promote community resilience of the Oakland and Alameda shorelines;
• Adopted the Active Transportation delineating pedestrian improvements, a low-stress bicycle network, project prioritization, and the future of Slow Streets. The City has completed 13.1 miles of bikeways as of 2024 towards CARP’s goal of 16.54 miles by 2030;
• Entered into agreements with StopWaste and the Alameda County Department of Environmental Health to help educate, implement, and enforce SB 1383’s edible food recovery requirements;
• City Council adopted a FEMA approved Climate Adaptation and Hazard Mitigation Plan and amended the General Plan Safety Element to align with the plan;
• Developed an Equitable Building Decarbonization Plan that lays out the process for transitioning natural gas use in existing buildings toward clean, energy efficient all-electric buildings;
• 95 publicly available EV chargers and 8.9% of all vehicles registered in Alameda were electric, plugin hybrid or fuel cell vehicles in 2023, up from 2.3% in 2017. AMP issued 952 EV charger and 194 used EV rebates between 2019 and 2024. The City is initiating a pilot program to expand public EV charging across the City; and
• Launched the Alameda Youth Climate Ambassadors to help student climate club representatives learn about how to get involved in City climate action work, activate the broader student community, and provide a platform for student climate clubs across Alameda to exchange ideas and share resources.
2024 Annual Report
To guide CARP implementation, the 2024 CARP Annual Report shows City progress towards its goals from the previous calendar year. The 2024 CARP Annual Report also serves as the annual report for the Climate Adaptation and Hazard Mitigation Plan. Staff provide these annual reports to inform the City Council and community on Citywide budget decisions. Key accomplishments from 2024 include:
• City staff participated or presented at 35 public workshops, events and community meetings.
• OAAC Partners conducted 40 focus group meetings, 16 committee meetings, and 3 rounds of workshops for Sea Level Rise Adaptation Projects.
• 16 email bulletins sent with 25,393 delivered and a 60% average unique email open rate.
• 2.3 miles of bikeway constructed in 2024, with 13.1 miles constructed since 2019.
• 205,823 free bus pass boardings, a 45% increase from 2023.
• An 8% increase in AC Transit average weekday boardings since 2023 and 36% increase since 2021.
• 11 new publicly available EV chargers at business and government locations.
• 501 electrification rebates and 6 new electrification programs launched by AMP.
• 200 attendees at the City’s first Home Electrification Fair.
• 8,090 unique page views on 11 sustainability and resilience webpages.
DISCUSSION
2025 CARP Update
The mid-cycle CARP evaluation process was undertaken to assess the efficacy of the CARP and ensure that it still reflects the community’s vision for climate action in Alameda. The update process has:
• Revised CARP vision and goals to better capture community values,
• Measured the impact of the implementation of CARP on GHG emissions by conducting the 2022 GHG inventory,
• Identified gaps and opportunities in CARP GHG mitigation measures as part of the creation of GHG Action Plans,
• Aligned the resilience component of the CARP with the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP) update cycle by using the CARP measures to inform the LHMP,
• Updated the list of Strategies for Location-Based Priority Flooding.
The 2025 CARP update supersedes the 2019 CARP and outlines the updated CARP vision and goals, the updated GHG mitigation measures (both new and continuing from the original CARP) which are reorganized into GHG action plans, and the updated hazard mitigation and the CARP resilience measures, which are now housed in the LHMP. The 2025 CARP update, including the LHMP, can be viewed at www.alamedaca.gov/CARP <http://www.alamedaca.gov/CARP>.
Planning Process and Community Engagement
The staff report from City Council’s October 15, 2025 (Staff Report 2024-4426 <https://alameda.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=6884830&GUID=BA004C6A-6D63-4018-BD77-1B05C2CFDDEB&Options=&Search=>) summarizes the CARP planning and community engagement process. Since that meeting the following engagement has taken place:
• Community Workshop #2 (December 2024) - Staff presented on GHG inventory, draft CARP vision, goals, and GHG reduction strategies and the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan. Presentation available at www.alamedaca.gov/CARP <http://www.alamedaca.gov/CARP>.
• Board and Commission meetings (February to March 2025)
• City Council adoption (this meeting)
Incorporation of Community Public Comment into the Final Draft
The Final Draft CARP Update incorporated public comments received on the Public Draft CARP Update. The Public Draft was available for review from mid December 2024 through January 2025 utilizing an online public comment form. The Public Draft received nearly 80 comments. The main takeaways from the public comment process are summarized below:
• Many comments were supportive of the CARP and shared additional existing/ongoing efforts in Alameda and by the community that could be highlighted. A few comments refuted the need for the City to take climate action.
• The community expressed concern about sea level rise and supported strategies to increase community resilience.
• Some community members expressed concern about the difficulty of reducing VMT and transitioning to walking and biking modes of transportation.
• Community members appreciated the consideration of equity in the CARP and expressed a desire to see it included in the implementation of CARP strategies.
• General clarification and proofreading comments.
• No comments resulted in major policy changes related to the CARP goals or strategies.
CARP Metrics
The CARP update included a review and update of targets and metrics to achieve CARP goals. As part of the implementation of the plan update, staff is developing an interactive dashboard where the public can view a summary of the 2025 CARP and track progress on all the CARP related targets and metrics. The dashboard will be available at www.alamedaca.gov/CARP in early 2025 <http://www.alamedaca.gov/CARP%20in%20early%202025>.
FEMA Approved Local Hazard Mitigation Plan
The Federal Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000) requires all local governments to have an adopted LHMP to be eligible for participation in and receive FEMA disaster mitigation grant funding. Alameda’s current plan was approved by FEMA on June 15, 2022. Following approval by City Council of the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan update incorporated in CARP (called the Climate Adaptation and Hazard Mitigation Plan), staff will forward the plan to CalOES for formal review. Once CalOES is satisfied that the foundational elements of the LHMP are in order, the City will be notified that City Council can formally adopt the plan while the plan is under FEMA review. FEMA will issue a "final approval" letter upon determination that the plan is in full compliance.
2025-2030 CARP Implementation
Achieving CARP goals in the coming 5 years will require continued investment and action by City Council and the whole community. The updated CARP identifies new and continuing actions to achieve the CARP goals. Priority new CARP programs to be led by Sustainability staff include:
• Expand publicly available EV charging infrastructure in public parking lots and public right of way and update the Alameda Municipal Code to allow enforcement of EV charging parking zones
• Adopt policies and building code amendments that require higher energy performance in existing buildings and prepare for future State electrification regulations
• Develop a tree canopy protection ordinance to implement the Urban Forest Plan
• Develop a long-term Subregional Adaptation Plan and continue to implement priority near-term adaptation projects
• Implement a Citywide basement flooding campaign and related policies
• Continue to hold the annual Home Electrification Fair
• Continue the Alameda Youth Climate Ambassadors program
• Continue to implement Active Transportation Plan, Transportation Choices Plan, Zero Waste Implementation Plan and other related plans.
Future CARP/LHMP Updates
The City is planning to undertake a comprehensive CARP update in 2030 which will update the technical analysis and consider CARP implementation progress toward goals, changes in State climate planning, and technological advancements. This update will also include an update of the FEMA approved LHMP.
ALTERNATIVES
• Adopt the 2025 CARP update and accept the 2024 Annual Report.
• Do not adopt the 2025 CARP update or accept the 2024 Annual Report and direct staff to make additional changes.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
There is no financial impact to the City from the CARP mid-cycle update and annual report. Individual projects recommended by the plans will be brought to City Council separately for approvals and funding as needed.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
This action is consistent with the City of Alameda CARP (2019), the Climate Adaptation and Hazard Mitigation Plan (2022), the General Plan (2022), and the City’s Strategic Plan (2023) for Project CC1 to update 5-Year Climate Action and Resiliency Plan including greenhouse gas emission inventory.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
In accordance with CEQA, this project is categorically exempt from further environmental review pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15308 (Actions by Regulatory Agencies for Protection of the Environment). The CARP update and annual report are intended to guide the City in the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, thus protecting the environment. Individual actions and projects to be implemented will complete environmental review under CEQA as these projects are defined.
CLIMATE IMPACT
The CARP assumes full implementation of the reductions in GHG emissions through 2030 through actions in transportation, building energy, waste, water, and wastewater.
RECOMMENDATION
Adopt a resolution adopting the 2025 CARP Mid-Cycle Update and accept the 2024 Annual Report.
Respectfully submitted,
Allen Tai, Planning, Building, and Transportation Director
By,
Danielle Mieler, Sustainability and Resilience Manager
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Ross McCarthy, Acting Finance Director
Exhibit:
1. 2024 Annual Report