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Climate Action Plan Update
The City is currently updating its Climate Action Plan (CAP) for this decade of climate action. The City's new carbon neutrality goal forms the basis of the CAP update, or "CAP 2.0," setting Fremont on the pathway to a sustainable, vibrant, and healthy community that supports the environment.
Within "CAP 2.0," efforts to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from activity in the energy, water, waste, and transportation sectors will be paired with efforts to sequester—or draw down—carbon dioxide and other GHGs from the atmosphere, so that by the year 2045, no new net greenhouse gases will be emitted. In addition, the City will explore efforts to enhance the community’s resiliency to future climatic changes as well as to adapt to changes that are already underway.
Within "CAP 2.0," efforts to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from activity in the energy, water, waste, and transportation sectors will be paired with efforts to sequester—or draw down—carbon dioxide and other GHGs from the atmosphere, so that by the year 2045, no new net greenhouse gases will be emitted. In addition, the City will explore efforts to enhance the community’s resiliency to future climatic changes as well as to adapt to changes that are already underway.
Climate Action Plan Update Timeline
City staff is working closely with a technical consultant to update community greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories, conduct future GHG emissions forecasting, and create a preliminary list of CAP measures to be vetted by staff, key stakeholders, and the community. Staff has already conducted robust community engagement efforts such as hosting community workshops and surveys; meeting with key stakeholder groups (e.g., youth, seniors, businesses, cultural organizations, and affordable housing developers); and presenting to relevant City boards, commissions, and committees.
Past Community Workshops
In September 2020, the City hosted the first Climate Action Plan Community Workshop. A recording, presentation slides, and polling results from the first Climate Action Plan Community Workshop are available below:
The first week of February 2021, the City hosted a series of virtual community conversations on key areas of the Climate Action Plan update. Each talk included information on potential climate measures and the road ahead, insights from area experts, and an open discussion for participants to voice their questions, ideas, and concerns. The recordings of each Climate Talk and presentation slides are available below:
Past Community Workshops
Climate Action Plan Community Workshop - September 2020
In September 2020, the City hosted the first Climate Action Plan Community Workshop. A recording, presentation slides, and polling results from the first Climate Action Plan Community Workshop are available below:
Climate Talks Week - February 1-5, 2021
The first week of February 2021, the City hosted a series of virtual community conversations on key areas of the Climate Action Plan update. Each talk included information on potential climate measures and the road ahead, insights from area experts, and an open discussion for participants to voice their questions, ideas, and concerns. The recordings of each Climate Talk and presentation slides are available below:
- Day 2: Land Use and Transportation - Video Recording
- Day 2: Land Use and Transportation - Presentation Slides
- Day 3: Materials, Waste, and Food - Video Recording
- Day 3: Materials, Waste, and Food - Presentation Slides
CAP Consider.it Online Forum
From December 2020 to February 2021, the City hosted an online community forum to gather public input on potential short and long term CAP measures—many of which would require partnership and support from other agencies to achieve. Using the forum, community members commented on suggested measures, proposed new ideas, and responded to feedback submitted by other participants. To view the feedback received, please visit the online forum at Fremont.gov/CAPConsiderIt.
Community Action
Climate action is a team sport, and community participation is key to the success of the City’s climate change goals in the near and long term. There are several ways community members can share their perspective and take action on climate:
- Sign up for the Fremont Green Challenge to log your sustainability and climate actions. Earn points and compete against your friends and neighbors as you do your part to move Fremont towards its climate goals.
- Take climate action where you are. Do you have an idea about how your organization, company, or neighborhood can help address climate action in Fremont? Lead an initiative, organize a group, or hold a virtual event. Feel free to reach out to the Sustainability team by email if you have ideas or questions.
The City passed its first Climate Action Plan in 2012 with the goal of reducing municipal and community-wide greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2020 from a 2005 baseline level. Some implementation successes include improving bike and pedestrian infrastructure, upgrading City streetlights with high-efficiency LEDs, requiring all businesses to recycle, and establishing mandatory solar requirements for new residential construction.
Fremont completed its baseline greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory in the year 2008, quantifying the GHG impacts of activities in Fremont associated with energy consumption, transportation, water distribution and treatment, and waste generation and disposal for the year 2005. Emissions for that year from all Fremont community activity exceeded 1.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e).
Emissions inventory updates were conducted again in 2014 and in 2017 for the years 2010 and 2015, respectively, demonstrating an overall decline of over 10% between 2005 and 2015—even with a 7.5% population increase during the same period.
Favorable policies and programs that encourage energy and water efficiency, incentivize low carbon construction, enable high adopt rates of clean technologies, and reduce waste have helped to keep Fremont on track toward achieving its 2020 GHG emissions reduction goal. As part of the Climate Action Plan update process, the City has recently completed its GHG inventories for the years 2017, 2018, and 2019. Significantly, Fremont had surpassed its 25% GHG emissions reduction target by the year 2017, 3 years ahead of schedule!
These trends can be seen in the charts below:
In early 2019, the Fremont City Council deepened its commitment to robust climate action by adopting a Post-Carbon Framework with ambitious goals of 55% GHG emissions reductions by 2030 and 100% emissions reduction by 2050, known commonly as carbon neutrality.
The Post-Carbon Framework establishes guiding values and key strategies that will provide for economic and social opportunity across all ages, cultures, and abilities while at the same time producing no net GHG emissions and protecting and enhancing a healthy and functioning local and global ecosystem.
Guiding Values
- Equity & Access: Ensure that all people have the opportunity to benefit equally from climate solutions, while not taking on an unequal burden of climate impacts.
- Efficiency & Innovation: Promote the efficient use of resources and the adoption of clean and climate-smart technologies and techniques.
Health & Wellness: Safeguard and enhance the ability of the community to live, work, play, connect, and thrive in a healthy social and physical environment.
- Resiliency & Capacity-Building: Provide education and training on the opportunities offered by a more resilient future and encourage sustainable behaviors across all sectors of the community.
Key Strategies
- Clean & Renewable Power: Deploy and efficiently use clean, renewable, and locally-sourced electricity generated onsite or transmitted through the power grid.
- Electrification & Fossil Fuel Phase-Out: Upgrade and replace carbon-intensive, fossil fuel-based infrastructure and combustion power throughout the transportation and building sectors with clean electric power.
- Carbon Sequestration: Drawdown carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere through ecological and/or technological methods and capture and store in plants, soils, water systems, and other solid forms.
- Mobility & Connectivity: Develop and enhance safe, multimodal, accessible, equitable, intelligent, and clean motorized and non-motorized travel options, transit modes, transportation infrastructure, and community connectivity.
- Resource Conservation & Elimination of Waste: Conserve natural and manufactured resources by means of the responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials.
- Restorative Ecology & Green Infrastructure: Restore, rehabilitate, and repurpose degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats through active interventions. Incorporate green infrastructure and ecosystem services into community design.
- Climate Adaptation & Resilience: Prepare for, limit, learn from, and adapt to the negative effects of climate change through proactive and holistic planning and response at infrastructural, cultural, and institutional levels.