June 24, 2020
On Friday, June 12, the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego rendered its ruling in response to a lawsuit brought against the County of San Diego by environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, Climate Action Campaign, and Center for Biological Diversity. Measurement of the Climate Action Plan (CAP) is administered through multiple County departments and pertains to activities occurring within the unincorporated area of the region, and within County-owned facilities, regardless of location.
The ruling rejected the county’s latest adopted Climate Action Plan, which enabled residential developments to offset greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicle traffic using carbon offsets, putting the onus back on the county to appeal this latest decision or begin drafting a new Climate Action Plan (CAP) altogether.
Additionally, not having a legal CAP impacts the validity of ongoing projects, further depriving the County of the kind of regulatory certainty needed to make substantive progress addressing housing in our region.