Last week, San Diego County adopted a bold, legally binding Climate Action Plan, prioritizing critical investments into communities hit first and worst by climate impacts! We applaud the county for taking action to protect the people and places we love.
Why It Counts:
Several cities in the County rank in the bottom third of 96 U.S. cities for climate readiness, being the least prepared for climate impacts. As we’re still reeling in the aftermath of January’s floods and storms, we see how dangerous it is to be unprepared.
This new CAP offers a pathway to slash pollution and develop healthier, resilient communities protected from climate impacts and natural disasters.
The CAP explicitly allocates 20% of its budget to investments in communities of concern. This means that every year—for the next five years—about 26 million will go directly into the communities at the frontline of climate impacts! That's a minimum of $130 million invested into building community resilience for the next five years.
Part of building resilience is helping residents live in safe, walkable communities with access to the people and resources they need. People shouldn't be priced out of these neighborhoods and forced to live in dangerous, high-fire zones. The CAP addresses this by including direction to encourage housing growth in only fire-safe and low vehicle miles traveled (VMT) areas.
This CAP comes after ten years of advocacy. Countless hours, community engagement, and litigation led to the adopting of a bold CAP. These equity investments are directly thanks to the advocacy of our policy team.
Huge thank you to all who took action and contacted your supervisor to support a bold CAP. We also thank Supervisor Montgomery Steppe, Supervisor Lawson-Remer, and Chairwoman Vargas, who voted to support an equitable and sustainable future. We did it! 👏
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