During Monday's City Council meeting, the council will be asked to approve a Climate Action Plan. It is the first Staff Report right after the first public comment period so you don't have to stay up too late to see it. The plan itself is 72 pages long, so we will have to discuss it in sections.
Here is the statement of the local situation and the goals of the plan:
Burlingame‘s community emissions inventory provides a baseline of emission levels against which future reductions can be measured. The analysis showed that the community of Burlingame released 336,944 metric tons of CO2equivalent in the base year of 2005. To reduce emissions to 15% below 2005 baseline levels by 2020, the community would need to reduce emissions by 50,542 metric tons to 286,402 metric tons during that period.
In today's economy, companies and residents are especially interested in green moves that save them money. The plan is attuned to that and suggests that:
City operations
Energy and water efficiency improvements can save the City significant operating costs (an estimated 10% to 15% improvement).
Businesses
Similarly, most businesses spend approximately 30% of their operating budget on energy and providing businesses with energy efficiency resources can help businesses save on an estimated 20-30% in utility costs.
Residents
Energy and water efficiency programs can provide homeowners and businesses with 20% to 40% cost savings.
Some of the early recommendations in the plan include adopting a water efficient landscape ordinance, adopting a voluntary residential energy conservation policy, researching a residential and small business solar financing plan, adopting a residential and commercial green building ordinance and adopting a policy for prioritized parking for hybrids.
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