City Councilman Paul Koretz introduced a motion Friday that aims to reduce the city’s carbon footprint by 80 percent come 2050 by speeding up the city’s transition from coal to renewable energy sources and by adding more solar rooftops, park trees and clean-burning garbage trucks.
The ambitious proposal to curb greenhouse gases causing global climate change is expected to be voted on by the City Council in early September, said Andy Shrader, Koretz’s aide on environmental policy.
“If we act now, we can keep it where it never gets beyond 2.7 additional degrees. If we don’t do anything, we expect (the planet) to be 5.2 degrees hotter. I don’t even want to think about what this can bring us,” Koretz said during a press conference on the steps of City Hall.
One of the most concrete aspects of the motion would speed up the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s exit from coal-fired plants by requiring an 80 percent reduction in LADWP-related carbon emissions from 1990 levels by 2030. The LADWP is on track to reduce carbon emissions by 58 percent in 2025 and 70 percent by 2030.
“We just want to give them a nudge to get them all the way there.” Koretz said.
The extra 10 percent could mean that Los Angeles may not be able to replace energy it buys from the coal-fired Intermountain Power Plant in central Utah with natural gas-powered energy, which only cuts carbon emissions by 50 percent. Instead, LADWP might have to buy more solar and wind energy, power that may be more expensive but is 100 percent carbon-emission free.
Asked whether this would raise electricity rates for LADWP customers, Evan Gillespie, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign who attended the press conference, said that may not be the case.
The cost of solar energy has dropped from $5 a watt to $2.50 a watt recently, he said. Also, more city electrical utilities are buying wind power from Utah at reduced rates.
“We think it would be a mistake to transition from one fossil fuel to another,” he said.
Carbon — as in carbon dioxide — is the main greenhouse gas that 97 percent of scientists say is clogging up the upper atmosphere, raising temperatures on Earth, melting the Arctic ice caps, rising sea levels and causing extreme weather events.
Koretz quoted the UCLA study on “Mid-Century Warming” that predicts a tripling of extreme heat days in Los Angeles and a reduction of snowfall in the Sierras of 42 percent below average. Less snowpack means less water for Los Angeles and all of Southern California.
If the City Council approves the motion, Los Angeles will join Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland and Minneapolis in pledging to reduce greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050.
This comes on the heels of President Obama’s plan announced earlier this month which asks for 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions from existing power plants by 2030, the equivalent of removing two-thirds the nation’s vehicles from the roadways. The authority to regulate greenhouse gases comes from the Clean Air Act, which this week was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in most instances.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates the plan could cost $8.8 billion annually in 2030. Senators from coal-producing states objected to the plan, saying it would be too costly.
After Obama’s plan was announced, China announced it would take steps to reduce its carbon emissions, Koretz said.
While the cost of Los Angeles’ plan is hard to quantify at this early stage, Koretz saw it more as symbolic and setting an example.
“L.A. is the city the world looks to for progressive leadership and for hope,” Koretz said. “It is up to us, together, working fiercely, and we must not let the world down.”