Climate Action - California Climate and Energy Collaborative

Priority Area: Climate Action Plans

What is Climate Action?

Climate action refers to efforts and initiatives taken to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the changing climate. It encompasses a broad range of activities at individual, community, corporate, and governmental levels. Local governments play a vital role in meeting State and local climate goals, however achieving substantial emission reductions within communities is challenging work. A third of California’s GHG reduction potential can be achieved through local action. In the last two decades, roughly half of the local governments in California have conducted and are working to implement climate action plans, including an analysis of local GHG sources and a plan for feasible emission reduction strategies to meet local targets.

What future are we working towards?

State and local participants envision a just transition to carbon neutral and regenerative future that offers climate stability and safety as well as new economic opportunities.

Which State Agencies are working on this issue?

This priority area is relevant to the function of:

California Energy Commission
California Public Utilities Commission
California Air Resources Board
Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development
California Environmental Protection Agency
California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)
Strategic Growth Council
Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation.

What’s already working?

California is leading the nation with the world’s most ambitious climate goals, targeting carbon neutrality by 2045 (AB 1297). The state has already met its 2020 target of returning to 1990 greenhouse gas levels several years ahead of schedule. California’s climate strategy is anchored by several key frameworks including the Scoping Plan, a five-year strategy that serves as a roadmap for emission reductions in CA which includes specific measures to slash greenhouse gases and clean up air pollution. The state has a comprehensive framework involving both state-level mandates and extensive local government action, with approximately 73% of California’s population living in a jurisdiction covered by a local Climate Action Plan covering a range of emission reduction strategies including transportation, land use, and energy & buildings. Additionally, billions have been raised from polluters to fund climate solutions through the state’s Cap-and-Invest program. While implementation is a challenge, models of regional coordination have been helpful to provide local support for climate action.

What’s keeping us from getting there and how to do overcome these barriers?

To achieve the desired future outlined above, California will need to accelerate climate action across CA. Participants share that several key barriers impede progress and require further attention, as detailed below: Planning Capacity, Source Data, Transitioning to Equitable Action, Legal Hurdles, and Load Capacity. Click on the barriers below to view details about challenges experienced across the state and solution opportunities at the state and local level.

Filterable Database

Barrier 1: Transitioning to Implementation
Implementing planned emission reduction measures at a local or regional level is difficult due to budgetary and structural constraints, such as a lack of sufficient funding, decision-maker buy-in, or infrastructural limitations (e.g. electricity load service).
Barrier 2: Planning Capacity
Too much local capacity (staff time/resources) and technical expertise is needed to develop/ track/ update greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and climate action plans (CAPs), which takes time and budget away from implementation.
Barrier 3: Source Data
Problems accessing GHG source data (e.g., utility or vehicle miles traveled (VMT) data) cause long delays in preparing and updating GHG inventories.
Barrier 4: Legal Hurdles
Local governments are discouraged from developing or implementing CAPs due to potential lawsuits, litigation, and compliance enforcement of CEQA mitigation measures in an EIR.

Local Solution Spotlights

The Allensworth Progressive Association (APA) is the community development nonprofit serving Allensworth, California’s first Black-founded and Black-funded community, located in southwestern Tulare County. After decades of disinvestment, the APA has built a model for community-led climate implementation that centers self-sufficiency, environmental justice, and Indigenous partnership. The foundation of the current work is the Allensworth Community Plan Update, which established 15 priority areas ranging from water security and energy sovereignty to regenerative agriculture and affordable housing. A critical early implementation step was successfully advocating for Allensworth’s redesignation from a Hamlet to a Community, unlocking access to infrastructure dollars and programs that were previously unavailable. In 2022 the APA received a Round 4 Transformative Climate Communities Planning Grant for a project titled “The Allensworth Model for Rural Climate Resilience and BIPOC Self-Sufficiency in the Central Valley,” which funded preliminary planning for seven priority projects, established formalized ongoing community outreach through a Community Action Committee, and produced the Allensworth Climate Resiliency Report. Current priority projects in various stages of development include a Community Resilience Center that would serve as a cooling and heating center, commercial kitchen, and emergency response hub; an agrivoltaics system combining energy and food sovereignty on repurposed land; and a regional trail connecting historical landmark areas with the Tachi Yokuts’ ancestral lands. The APA’s work is distinguished by its relationship with the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Yokuts, with whom it has developed an aligned vision for mutually beneficial solidarity programs rooted in Indigenous stewardship of the Tulare Lake Basin.

The Stanislaus Sustainable Communities Coalition (SSCC) is a regional collaborative of community-based organizations in the Modesto area that has spent several years working to ensure that the Environmental Justice element of Modesto’s General Plan reflects the priorities of frontline residents rather than being shaped exclusively by city staff and consultants. Beginning before the city’s own General Plan process was underway, the SSCC used a two-year $50,000 grant from ClimatePlan, managed by the California Health Collaborative, to conduct 11 community watch parties (10 in Spanish) reaching 135 residents through guided discussions on General Plan basics. CivicSpark fellow Zoe Jonick spearheaded the outreach process, and direct investment went back into the community through stipends for watch party hosts and food for participants. The coalition then hired a consultant to translate community themes into formal policy recommendations, returning to residents at each stage to verify that the document reflected what they had actually said. When the City of Modesto subsequently presented the coalition’s own community-generated data as city work without consent, the SSCC responded by building a formal, independently owned policy document that tied resident input directly to specific General Plan recommendations, shifting the coalition’s role from advisory to accountable co-author. The SSCC is currently engaged in active advocacy with both the City of Modesto, which is in the land use and policy development phase, and Stanislaus County, which is in the outreach phase of its own General Plan, with both jurisdictions expected to finalize their processes by 2027.

The California Water Institute at Fresno State is leading a multi-county Flood-Managed Aquifer Recharge (FloodMAR) initiative across Merced, Madera, Fresno, and Tulare Counties that reframes a regional climate threat as an implementation opportunity. Groundwater basins across the San Joaquin Valley remain in critical overdraft under SGMA mandates while billions of gallons of floodwater leave the region unused every year, and agencies have historically managed both problems in isolation. The initiative brings together groundwater sustainability agencies, irrigation districts, and flood control agencies around a shared mission: mapping priority recharge zones, building coordinated flood response protocols, and empowering local water managers and landowners with the tools and data needed for on-the-ground action. A core innovation is the establishment of a Recharge Response Team designed to enable rapid, coordinated action when high-flow opportunities arise — replacing the fragmented agency response that left communities without a single point of accountability during the 2023 floods. The project pairs technical coordination with deep community engagement, including culturally grounded outreach tools like a Recharge Lotería developed for Spanish-speaking communities, and pre- and post-event surveys that demonstrate measurable knowledge gains among participants. The project is currently advancing priority zone mapping, finalizing the RRT governance structure, and translating planning outputs into actionable recharge projects ready for the next high-flow event.

The Wildlife Conservation Board offers an existing state model for resolving the capital stacking problem that prevents multi-benefit climate projects from moving from planning to implementation. Rather than requiring applicants to independently assemble complex multi-funder packages (with each funder waiting for others to commit first) the Wildlife Conservation Board listens to project proposals and coordinates funding from multiple sources on its end, awarding aligned resources directly to shared project goals. Participants at the Catalyst Convening in the Central Coast participants named this approach as a model the state should replicate more broadly, particularly through SGC, to help regional climate plans move into coordinated, multi-benefit implementation without organizations spending their limited capacity navigating funder-by-funder negotiations.

In a region long dismissed as too isolated and too small to implement meaningful climate action, the Resilient Cuyama Valley Initiative is demonstrating what becomes possible when a community-owned plan is given the implementation support it needs. The Cuyama Valley (a disadvantaged unincorporated community of approximately 1,000 people across 175 square miles at the corners of four counties) was designated an environmental justice community by Santa Barbara County, with residents experiencing persistent pesticide exposure, lead in housing stock, overdrafted groundwater, and repeated isolation during wildfires and flooding.

The initiative is built on the Cuyama Valley Community Action Plan, an 18-month community-owned planning effort led by Blue Sky Center that identified local priorities for home improvements, infrastructure upgrades, workforce development, and town beautification. Those priorities have been directly implemented through a four-partner initiative (Blue Sky Center, Quail Springs, the Community Environmental Council, and the County of Santa Barbara) anchored by a Transformative Climate Communities grant and a diversified stack of federal, state, and regional funding. The effort has generated over $20 million in designed projects, including home energy retrofits, drinking water filtration, food access programming, emergency resilience infrastructure, and a clean energy workforce development program. The planned scope would enable at least three community microgrids, a full school district HVAC retrofit, and energy upgrades to 50 percent of the valley’s housing stock; demonstrating how community-owned planning, patient multi-partner coordination, and sustained funding can move a deeply under-resourced rural community from planning to implementation at meaningful scale.

State legislation and policy pathways like SB 852 Climate Resilience Districts (2022) allow cities, counties, special districts, or combinations of these entities to form CRDs specifically for climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience projects.

The Cities of San Diego and Sunnyvale include an adoptable implementation workplan and budget along with their CAP to gain internal buy-in and investment.

Various types of climate collaboratives have emerged throughout the state. San Mateo County’s Regional Integrated Climate Action Planning Support (RICAPS) model and Sonoma County’s RCPA are coordinating implementation and grant applications across multiple jurisdictions.

The recently reauthorized Cap-and-Invest provides approximately $4B/year the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which funds multiple programs through CARB’s CA Climate Investments that can help a local community reduce emissions including over a billion dollars in investments in housing, transit and infill emission reduction projects through SGC’s Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities and Transformative Climate Communities Grants.

UCLA’s Energy Atlas partners with Regional Energy Networks to Provide Access to Energy Data

The Bay Area Energy Atlas—one of the nation’s most comprehensive energy tools—has been revamped with new features, expanded data, and a more user-friendly interface. Developed by UCLA in partnership with BayREN, the Atlas helps users explore regional energy use through interactive maps and detailed building data. From policymakers to curious residents, anyone can now dive deeper into energy trends by city, building type, or time period. New tools make it easier to compare communities and visualize consumption with monthly data through 2021.

https://lnkd.in/gYtNyeAg

State support for UC Berkeley’s GHG Inventory Tool

The CoolClimate Network at UC Berkeley is developing a data platform for GHG inventories and climate action metrics for local governments across California. The project was presented at CCEC 2024 and 2025 to gather input from participants. The outputs available to cities and counties (unincorporated counties are in the works) include traditional and consumption based inventories from 2010-2022. They also feature tangible metrics such as EV registrations with the DMV and heat pumps installed through TECH incentives. These detailed metrics are more informative and actionable for implementation than overall GHG emissions. They enable local governments to set concrete targets and tell compelling stories about climate action, benefits, and potential impacts in their communities. The emphasis on these metrics reflects the emerging trends of climate action practice, which seeks to be more relatable to people and integrated with equitable community benefits.

The climate action data tool allows local governments to more efficiently conduct GHG inventories and evolve their climate action efforts and communications to focus on community benefits. The practice of local government climate action was originally established in the mid 2000’s in response to a lack of federal leadership. The current context calls us not only to continue but become more effective while delivering quantifiable social benefits and having the metrics to tell compelling stories.

CARB staff and contractors participate in the project’s advisory group and are evaluating whether this tool will meet the needs of local governments.

Monterey Bay Maximizes Regional Capacity in Award Winning Natural and Working Lands Climate Mitigation and Resiliency Study

Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG) and Ascent for winning this year’s Resilience and Sustainability Merit Award for the Monterey Bay Natural and Working Lands Climate Mitigation and Resiliency Study.

The Monterey Bay Natural and Working Lands Climate Mitigation and Resiliency Study is the first comprehensive carbon sequestration analysis at a regional scale. Its innovative approach combines GIS modeling with extensive stakeholder engagement, creating a uniquely collaborative and data-driven framework. A comprehensive list of strategies and actions were identified to support carbon sequestration efforts that are scientifically sound and practically viable, making them implementable within the context of the Monterey Bay Area and its local agencies.

The Monterey Bay Natural and Working Lands Climate Mitigation and Resiliency Study analyzes carbon sequestration potential across Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz Counties, offering strategies to enhance carbon storage, climate resilience, and sustainable land management in urban, forest, and agricultural areas through stakeholder collaboration and innovative GIS modeling.

“A key takeaway of this study is that we need to foster regional collaboration in order to implement innovative solutions at the scale needed to protect and enhance the carbon sequestration potential of our natural and working lands.”

Community-Based Organization Partnerships to Bolster Local Climate Action Planning

The Cities of Alameda and Petaluma utilized community partners in the development and ongoing implementation of their climate action plans. In 2025, Alameda updated their Climate Action & Resilience Plan partnering with Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda. In 2024, Petaluma adopted their Blueprint for Climate Action organizing community leadership through the Climate Action Commission’s two different types of local leadership, city government and community members, and how they work together to achieve climate goals. Alameda and Petaluma partnered with community organizations to tap into diverse networks and experiences within their cities. The partners each city worked with include members representing other local and regional organizations, which allowed them to share a broad cross-section of the community and raise traditionally marginalized perspectives and experiences. Including these partners in implementation creates a framework to realize climate planning objectives equitably across the community.

This model showcases how city climate goals are achieved through community-focused implementation. It highlights how local community partnerships can guide city planning and implementation processes and how cities incorporate existing community efforts and frameworks. Partnering with community leaders allowed these cities to commit to bold climate action despite capacity constraints and competing priorities. This model demonstrates how to adopt a community partnership model that expands a city’s reach, leverages community knowledge, and aligns community efforts with city structures and climate goals.

Continued Efforts to Advance Greater State-Local Coordination

In 2022, CARB’s Sustainable Transportation and Communities Division approached CCEC to support engagement on its Local Actions Appendix of the 2022 Scoping Plan Update, which sets measures and targets for the State’s emission reduction goals. Following those discussions, CARB was interested in working with CCEC to conduct listening sessions designed to deepen the valuable collaboration between CARB and local government practitioners responsible for developing and implementing local climate action plans and strategies. The objective was to help inform CARB’s plans for potential future programs and services that can help local governments more successfully advance substantial emission reduction strategies within communities. Across three additional meetings, approximately 150 participants identified the most pressing barriers and needs facing local governments in implementing emission reduction measures and explored possible State-led support and solutions. The majority of attendees represented local government, many of which are primarily responsible for or actively working on local planning efforts within California communities.

Potential “fundamental principles” around State-local climate action coordination
At a SLECC meeting in 2024, Cory Downs from Chula Vista proposed the following principles to help advance state and local coordination on climate action.
– Local government actions are essential to meeting the State’s emission reduction targets and to protecting communities from the worst impacts of climate change.
– CA should not expect or require each local government to do a climate action plan, but we should support those that wish to do one.
– Local climate action plans are a way to conduct analysis that can garner equitable engagement, public and political support, and justify local funding and staff capacity to implement a custom set of beneficial emission reduction strategies to meet targets, which can serve as state pilots. Those that wish to adopt a CEQA-qualified CAP may need guidance.
– A key barrier local communities face is access to data for GHG inventories. Local governments cannot solve this problem individually, we need state leadership.

While resources like CARB’s Local Actions Appendix can be useful to guide the development of broader GHG mitigation efforts, participants would appreciate sustained, coordinated State leadership towards providing reliable, transparent, and affordable data and other assistance to accelerate implementation of local emission reduction actions. The Climate Action Planning Technical Advisory Group, formed during the update of the General Plan Guidelines for LCI, has reviewed CAP literature, inventory development, and integration with general plans. They aim to provide guidance on CAP creation vs. updates, clarify their mission, and outline state priorities to help cities take effective action.

Help us strengthen our knowledge base!

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Additional Resources

CARB’s Local Actions for Climate Change webpage
UC Berkeley: The Status of Local Climate Action in California
City Scale et al: State of Local Climate Planning
UCLA paper describes problems with 15/15 rule and data masking
Governor’s Office of Landuse and Climate Innovation’s Annual Planning Survey

Please share any additional resources you would like to include by emailing eecoordinator@civicwell.org.