Belvedere considers citizen panel to develop emissions-fighting strategies, outreach

Belvedere may form a citizen committee to tackle climate change as it looks to residents to take a leading role in implementing goals to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

The city’s 2030 Climate Action Plan, adopted last June, aims to reduce local emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels, which aligns with statewide targets. Belvedere has also declared a climate emergency to affirm its commitment to emissions reductions and to community education as it prioritizes the goals of the plan, which include low-carbon transportation, electrification and use of renewable energy, energy efficiency and waste reduction.

But with just 1% of Belvedere’s greenhouse-gas emissions coming from government operations and facilities, the rest is from residential energy use and transportation — meaning residents must shoulder the changes through active personal choices or through policy mandates and be educated how to do that.

“From a policy point of view, we don’t want people to be feeling they have to do this because it’s regulated, but to understand why on a personal level it makes sense in their families and our community,” City Councilmember Nancy Kemnitzer said during an annual strategic-planning session on March 1.

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