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How real is San Diego’s Climate Action Plan’s progress?

Traffic backed up on southbound Interstate 5 heading into downtown on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017.
(K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
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San Diego released a report in October that found the city was years ahead of schedule for reducing its carbon footprint as required under its nationally vaunted Climate Action Plan.

However, progress on reducing greenhouse gases likely received a sizable boost from a statistical anomaly — as opposed to real reductions in emissions, according to an analysis by the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The city’s contracted expert tracking progress on the climate plan said the accounting discrepancy is real but unintentional, resulting from a lack of reliable driving data that was available when the city adopted the plan in December 2015.

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“There wasn’t anything better at the time,” said Nilmini Silva-Send, assistant director with the Energy Policy Initiatives Center at the University of San Diego School of Law, which the city has contracted with to help track progress on its climate plan.

“We’re working with all the cities in the region to develop consistency and methodology (on climate action plans), and we didn’t have that when we started with San Diego,” she added.

Specifically, the city has committed to slashing its greenhouse gases 15 percent below 2010 levels by 2020 and 50 percent below that benchmark by 2035. The goals are intended to mirror the state targets of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 40 percent below that by 2030.

Tailpipe emissions are the biggest single source of climate pollution in the city, with transportation accounting for roughly 55 percent of greenhouse emissions.

We’re working with all the cities in the region to develop consistency and methodology (on climate action plans), and we didn’t have that when we started ...

— Nilmini Silva-Send, assistant director at University of San Diego’s Energy Policy Initiatives Center

Experts drafting the climate plan had to estimate a key factor in the number of emission being emitted in the city for the baseline year of 2010 — namely, vehicle miles traveled, or VMT.

Those numbers were based on an economic and demographic forecasting data, provided by the San Diego Association of Governments, which underestimated the severity of the economic downturn and by extension VMT.

“At the time of the forecast of when it was done, it was the best knowledge that we had at that time. Looking backwards, we didn’t understand the extent of the recession,” said Rick Curry, a transportation analyst with SANDAG.

A few years after 2010, employment in the county rebounded, and with it, the number of drivers on the road from San Diego to Oceanside.

According to a recent SANDAG report, freeway VMT would jump in the county from roughly 11.6 billion in 2010 to 12.2 in 2012 and then to more than 14 billion in 2016.

By contrast, the city’s climate plan shows VMT falling dramatically from 13.7 billion in 2010 to 12.2 billion in 2012 and then up slightly to 12.7 billion in 2016.

That’s because in 2015, the agency updated its modeling to more accurately reflect that economic and demographic impacts of the downturn and other factors.

The inconsistency between the agency’s two models resulted in a climate plan that found driving dramatically slowed down during a period when in fact it significantly picked up.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer announces the results of the 2017 Climate Action Plan monitoring report at the Chollas Operations Yard.
(San Diego Union-Tribune / Staff )

SANDAG’s most recent reporting found that highway VMT specifically in the city of San Diego increased from about 6.7 billion in 2010 to more than 7.5 billion in 2016.

This discrepancy is particularly relevant because, according to the city’s recent progress report, transportation accounts for the biggest source of greenhouse-gas reductions to date — roughly 1.4 million metric tons between 2010 and 2016.

The next highest category, electricity use, saw a total reduction of 812,475 metric tons of greenhouse gases in that time period. Emissions reductions attributable to water use accounted 189,284 metric tons.

Transportation, of which VMT is a key component, accounted for more than half of all reductions as of last year, according to the city’s most recently published accounting.

Some of that is thanks to the state’s tightening vehicle emissions standards, but the city’s 2017 climate plan monitoring report quietly acknowledges the impact of SANDAG’s forecasting adjustment.

“The decrease in transportation-related emissions are partially due to updated transportation models as well as continuously improving vehicle efficiency standards,” the plan reads.

The city recognized the statistical anomaly, stressing that efforts are being made to improve tracking of progress on its climate plan.

“The science is evolving,” said Cody Hooven, chief sustainability officer for the city of San Diego. “Everything is changing, and we’re doing better year over year.”

Such issues have also come to the attention of the California Air Resources Board. The agency is revising its guidelines for how cities and county track progress on climate action plans. Specifically, it has suggested that municipalities consider adopting per-capita targets of no more than six metric tons of greenhouse gases by 2030 and 2 metric tons by 2050.

“We need a consistent set of metrics, and that’s what this is pointing to so that everyone’s speaking the same language,” said Dave Clegern, spokesman for the air board.

Those target are roughly in line with what the city has legally committed itself to under its climate plan, but they could prove less complicated to track over time.

Twitter: @jemersmith

Phone: (619) 293-2234

Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com

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