City of Encinitas’ Climate Action Accomplishments: Reflecting On Our 2019 Performance

It has been nearly three years since Encinitas unveiled its updated Climate Action Plan in January 2018. Since then, we have been busy making Encinitas more resilient to future climate change through the implementation of the measures and strategies outlined in our CAP. Our yearly annual reports track the City’s progress towards achieving the CAP’s established goals. The latest annual report was published in February 2021 and presents progress made through 2019 showing we’re on track to meet our CAP targets! 

Recap of Goals and Actions

The City’s overall target set in 2018 is to reduce GHG emissions by 13 percent below 2012 levels by 2020 and 41 percent below 2012 levels by 2030. To reach this target, the City enacted 19 specific measures which you can see in more detail here in our 2018 CAP.* 

Accomplishments So Far 

In the past two years we’ve have made big strides towards our CAP goals. We have completed five of the nineteen CAP measures and initiated another thirteen measures. Only one measure is still awaiting resources. The five completed measures are listed below. 

Notably, in 2019, the City made significant progress towards establishing a Community Choice Energy (CCE) agency that is now gearing up to deliver renewable electricity to Encinitas residents and businesses in the near future. Additionally, the City planted 181 trees in 2019, exceeding the 2030 tree planting target established by the CAP more than 10 years early. The annual report includes detailed charts like the one pictured below for each of the CAP measures. The charts compare historical progress with the 2020 and 2030 targets set for each measure.   

Tree Planting Performance and Goals

Ambitions for the Future 

To keep the public informed, our CAP calls for annual monitoring and reporting, summarizing progress toward overall GHG reduction targets and evaluating progress made on implementing each of the CAP measures. Throughout the next decade, we will continue to share our progress in making Encinitas a more resilient city. To find out more check out our newly released 2019 Annual Report or our Climate Dashboard

* In November 2020, the City adopted an update to the CAP that established a more ambitious 2030 target of reducing emissions by 44 percent before the end of the decade.  The update also included revisions to some of the CAP measures and the addition of one new measure, MCET-2. These revisions will be reflected in future annual reports, as the CAP update did not go into effect until the end of 2020. To learn more about these recent updates, check out the 2020 CAP here, or our blog post highlighting the biggest changes here.