Sign Our Climate Action Plan Community Letter!

Thank you for your invaluable work on Charlottesville’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) draft. The draft CAP gives us a framework to shift away from fossil-fuel dependency, use climate action to promote social justice, and address the climate crisis here in Charlottesville.

While we are excited by the CAP draft that has been released, there are two motivations for us to send a letter recommending further action on the CAP before it is finalized: 

1. The need for more substantial and relevant recommendations;
2. The need for clearly committing to equitable and inclusive community engagement.

#1 The Need for More Substantial and Relevant Recommendations

As we celebrate the recent release of Charlottesville’s CAP draft, there are relevant and substantial commitments established in the CAP that should be highlighted. Among them:

• Reach 100% carbon-neutral electricity in City-owned buildings & facilities by 2030;
• Reduce energy consumption by 10% across [community] all buildings by 2030;
• Aim for 10% of Charlottesville's rooftop solar potential to be installed by 2030.

These commitments are evidence of successful negotiations between the City’s Climate team and other City departments. However, it’s also important to observe that the Charlottesville CAP draft includes recommendations that are not relevant, which suggests that more and better coordination is still needed. For example, the CAP draft includes the following natural gas and public-transit recommendations that are redundant in practice:

• “Consider a commitment to make Charlottesville Gas fully carbon neutral (...) by 2050;”
• "Initiate a Transit Pathways to Carbon Neutrality by 2050 Assessment."

These recommendations are redundant (and lack ambition) because: both the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County — the region served by Charlottesville Gas and Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) — have already committed to community-wide carbon neutrality by 2050, which implies that both Charlottesville Gas and CAT’s operations will have to be carbon-neutral by then.

Other goals that lack clear direction and accountability should be reconsidered.  When it comes to implementation, we are concerned that these recommendations will be easy to deprioritized in a crowded policy space. Even though we are certain that the current City staff is committed to advancing climate-friendly policies, the CAP recommendations should be clear enough to remain equally meaningful and relevant to whoever reads them.

To address the above-mentioned concerns, we recommend that the CAP offer clear guidance regarding by which means and at what pace sectors and/or agencies should decarbonize their operations. For example, the CAP should set a series of goals of the type “Sector A should reduce GHG emissions by X% by 20YY”. Moreover, for each goal, the CAP should also suggest quantifiable metrics for tracking progress and practical strategies for achieving them.

Conclusion: The CAP should establish more SMARTIE (Strategic, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, Time-bound, Inclusive, and Equitable) goals in all areas (“key actions”) of the CAP.

#2 The Need for Clearly Committing to Equitable and Inclusive Community Engagement

In addition to the well-outlined equity concern section of each topic, all sections of the CAP should provide actionable recommendations with more clear guidance as to: 

• How the City will create mechanisms for equitable/inclusive community engagement (both in providing feedback for program design and also as beneficiaries of program implementation);
• How it will promote a just transition to a carbon-neutral economy.

Final Recommendations to Charlottesville’s Climate Action Plan: 

After considering the existing CAP draft “key actions”, we present the below list of recommendations that we hope the City can incorporate into the final CAP document. The recommendations are divided into the following five sections:

• Climate Justice Through Energy Equity;
• Equitable Decarbonization of Charlottesville Gas (at a Pace Aligned with the Climate Crisis);
• “Accessible, Clean Transit - ACT on Climate!”;
• Boosting Climate Solutions Through Food Justice; and
• Climate-Smart and Equitable Zoning.