Report back on 2nd round of Oakland Climate Action workshops

Good News in Oakland! The GHG reduction and clean energy goals of the Local Clean Energy Alliance have been adopted by the Oakland Climate Action Coalition and are actively being considered by city staff. The Oakland Climate Action Coalition includes a number of community-based and social justice organizations such as Ella Baker Center, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, Rising Sun Energy Center, Sun Light & Power, Communities for a Better Environment, and IBEW 595.

Furthermore, the alliance's two priority policies - a Comprehensive Energy Efficiency Retrofit & Solar Program and a Labor & Community Driven Energy Purchasing Program - were on the list of policies that city staff wanted feedback on in yesterday's Second Round Public Workshops for the Oakland Climate Action Plan. Thanks to our members for their participation!

The purpose of the second round workshops was to get public input into the development of the Energy and Climate Action Plan. Community members were encouraged to attend to learn about and help shape the Plan. My best guess is that there were 50-75 members of the community who discussed a set of potential climate actions in small groups and gave individual written feedback. City staff was looking for feedback on the importance of the policies and the reasoning. They intend to use the information culled from these forms to support their ultimate policy recommendations.