McCall Officials Tie New Climate Action Plan to City Planning, Starting With Lawn Mowers

McCall has approved a Climate Action Plan, and the city staff behind it say they want it to guide everyday decisions rather than sit apart from them. Michelle Groenevelt, the city's community and economic development director, and Meredith Todd, assistant city planner, discussed the effort in a conversation with Morning Edition host George Prentice on Boise State Public Radio.

Groenevelt said the community set out its vision in 2007 and has reaffirmed it several times. That vision describes McCall as a diverse small town that is safe, clean, healthy and attractive, as well as friendly, progressive, affordable and sustainable. The city now wants the sustainability piece to be considered whenever the council makes a decision, with the climate plan embedded in the comprehensive plan.

Todd said her review of that comprehensive plan found many broadly stated goals covering the economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainability. What was missing, she said, was a guiding map for dealing with climate change as a community. She described the new effort as a chance to open that conversation. Pursuing it as a broad umbrella, she said, is better than treating it as something "that sits off in a corner that we think of when it's convenient."

Groenevelt described a shift in how proposals will reach decision makers. Instead of looking only at financial impacts, staff will also present climate and sustainability factors, including secondary social and economic effects. She said the framework used for the electric mower decision will be applied to major decisions going forward.

That mower decision was the first example staff brought to the council. The city operates a golf course, and the choice involved the mowers for its greens, which make up four of about seven city mowers. Todd looked at the energy needs of an electric model, whether the city had the capacity to charge it, how much gasoline money could be saved, and how many greenhouse gas emissions could be avoided. She said she wanted emissions weighed on equal footing with cost, asking what the city spends in environmental terms if carbon were treated like a dollar.

Todd said the city is aiming to avoid between six and seven metric tons of carbon over a season. She put that in local terms: "Everybody in McCall seems to drive a Subaru," she said, and the savings equal driving six or seven times from San Francisco to Atlanta in a Subaru Outback.

Asked about political resistance to the phrase climate action, Todd said she tried to keep the discussion simple for the council. She focused on the city's greenhouse gas emissions inventory and the idea that human actions put particles into the air that can be changed, rather than starting a broad debate over who should do what and when.

Todd also explained the difference between net zero and real zero. Net zero means emissions continue but are accounted for, for example through carbon offsets. Real zero, which climate planners call drawdown, is the point at which total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere begin to fall. She said the scientific community has a goal of net zero by 2050 and real zero around 2070, to help keep warming within 1.5 or two degrees Celsius.

On the timeline, Groenevelt said the city plans to update its comprehensive plan, adding specific climate action work to both public outreach and policy documents. The update is expected to begin around October 2023 and take 12 to 18 months, since it is meant to be an update rather than a full rewrite.