Council joins with other cities to cut greenhouse gas emissions

The Sonoma City Council, at its meeting Wednesday evening, agreed on a 3-2 vote to join with eight other cities in Sonoma County in a plan to coordinate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 25 percent below 1990 levels, by the year 2015.  That is, in 7 years, the cities are expected not only to reduce emissions back to the levels that they were 18 years ago, but by another one-quarter beyond that.
The council had several years ago committed itself to reducing its own emissions, from its own municipal administrative and maintenance operations. This proposal creates a new Regional Climate Protection Coordination Plan, working initially through the Sonoma  County Transit Authority.
Council member Steve Barbose and council member-elect Laurie Gallian have reportedly worked together on the development of the Sonoma County Climate Action Plan and both urged the council to adopt this new framework.  Council member Stanley Cohen also spoke in favor, noting that citizens will not cut their emissions voluntarily. He said that while 80 percent of people say that something should be done about greenhouse gases, 46 percent refuse to cut back on the use of  their cars.
This new effort among the nine cities features an annual “Climate Congress,” at which emission reduction measures would be evaluated and discussed. While the program would itself merely oversee progress toward the goal, the individual cities would be expected to be pursue implementation of these measure. The cost of running the coordination plan is projected to be at least several hundred thousand dollars.  Sonoma City Manager Linda Kelly thought the cost sharing might be based on relative populations of the cities, and Cohen thought that Sonoma County itself or some of its agencies might pay a large portion of the costs before participation by the cities would be required.
Council member Aug Sebastiani and Mayor Joanne Sanders both voted against joining the Regional Climate Protection Coordination Plan.