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tv   Government Access Programming  SFGTV  July 28, 2019 4:00pm-5:01pm PDT

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that this paragraph g does not apply to -- i think this is the way you'll write it or other ones, too, a place located or to a property located in the broadway neighborhood commercial district, northeast pacific neighborhood commercial district or polk street neighborhood commercial district. we don't need to do those now, but i think starting -- that will be the template language that those other supervisors are seeking. so why don't we send that out to the meeting on the 30th without objection. [gavel]. >> chair peskin: madam clerk, will you please read item 9. [agenda item read]. >> chair peskin: supervisor mandelman, the floor is yours.
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>> supervisor mandelman: thank you, chair peskin, supervisor safai, and supervisor haney. i know we've had a long meeting, but i think this is important and i want to thank you for making time for this today. earlier this year, massive rainfalls resulted in flooding along the embarcadero and other low lying areas of our city. folks, climate change isn't coming, it's already here. last year, a group of climate advocates, some of whom are here today asked my office to work with them on declaring a climate emergency in san francisco. other communities had already taken the steps of declaring a climate emergency and those areas saw san francisco as a
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local model should join them. the resolution called for the san francisco department of the environment along with the mayor's office and relevant city agencies to develop and submit a report on department the findings. i do think it's worth noting that san francisco has already done a good bit of proactive report to combat climate change. between 1990 and 2017, san francisco had achieved a 36% reduction in greenhouse gas
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emissions, exceeding the 25% goal set by the supervisors in 2008. about a month ago, the mayor set legislation requiring renewable energy procurement for new buildings. despite our significant progress, we clearly need to do more. an emergency situation calls for an emergency response, and this hearing should help us better understand how our city can do its part to achieve the deep emissions reductions without which humans will not survive. the presentation on clean energy will focus on the elimination of fossil fuels as a source of power.
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for transportation, i understand that staff will focus on mode shift and reducing private vehicle miles travelled, among other strategies. for buildings, which account for 44% of citywide emissions, staff will discuss ways to reduce emissions. this hearing is an opportunity to stake stock of the progress the city has already made as well as the work yet to be done and especially to hone in on strategies and legislative or policy proposals to inform san francisco's climate action strategy update coming next year in 2020. i want to thank the staff at the department of the environment as well as the mayor's office. i also want to thank the climate justice advocates who
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have led this from the beginning, and i want to thank kyle in my office for his work. i look forward working closely with this group and advocates in the labor and green jobs community as we move forward. a little bit about the hearing. we're going to start with debbie raphael, the director of the department of environment, and then, we do have a number of city staff presentations. i have asked those staff to keep their presentations to three minutes each. i'm hoping the clerk can set the timer so that we will hold you to those three minutes. and then, we will have an opportunity to hear from the public. so that's about how this will go. it's not going to be a short hearing, but i hope it's not too terribly long, either, and
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with that, director raphael. >> thank you, supervisor mandelman. thank you, chair peskin, supervisor haney for the opportunity to be here today. my name is debbie raphael, and i'm the director of the san francisco department of environment. supervisor mandelman did an outstanding job of setting the stage, and i will use some images to reinforce something he said, and hand it off to talk about our department. the crisis is here as supervisor mandelman. during the fire that was in butte county, just want to remind us that 80 people lost their live, 1800 structures destroyed. and the thing that makes this particular fire so indicative of why we're here today is we are about 160 miles from the
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site of this fire, and yet, the ravage of this fire, the tragedy of this fire actually became the air that we breathe here in san francisco, and this is mother nature's way of screaming at us to call attention that even though things may not be happening within our 7-mile-by-7-mile radius, things are still happening. it takes the community behind us, the community that is calling for us to take action together. i'd like to remind us all that carbon is not necessarily the enemy. we are a carbon based species, and we rely on it for our survival. for 400,000 acres, the carbon
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in the atmosphere has been less than 300 parts per million. and we see where we are today, where we are well over 400 parts per million and rising. at supervisor mandelman said, we aren't take -- we are taking this quite seriously, and we've already reduced our own emissions by 36%. that is laudable and not enough at the same time. so when we think about climate action, it's very important that we remember that all of our actions must deliver benefits for all san franciscans, that when we talk about equitiable climate action, we're talking about paying attention to public health, to affordability, to jobs for all. this is what we mean when we say we need an equitiable strategy. our strategy is often summarized in these four words.
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zero, 80, 100, roots. i like to say 0, 80, 100 is how we do less bad in the world, and roots is how we're going to heal this planet. so when we talk about healing the planet and thinking about roots, we're thinking about biodiversity. a recently study says if we plant a billion trees, we will reduce two thirds of our emissions. in the dense urban viemplt env of planting in san francisco, it's about green bins. it's about composting to absorb carbon out of the air and heal the planet. i like to say that everyone who
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is fully committed to their green bin is truly an -- a climate champion. so this technical report that was asked of us focuses on 0, 80, and 100. it talks about carbon sequestration, but the analysis is telephone itself is focused on transportation, energy, and waste. so in closing, we are in this together. there is no way that any one party can accomplish this on its own. so i want to just take a very quick moment to thank some people who are very important in our work. i want to thank mayor breed for her leadership, and i also want to thank tyrone for being my right hand in everything that i work on. my fellow city department heads
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and their staff, my colleagues at the department of the environment and most importantly, the community groups who are showing up today because they can't imagine a more important place for them to be at this moment. and supervisor mandelman and kyle, thank you for your attention to this, this leadership, and our opportunity to work together, so with that, i'm going to introduce wendy goodfriend who will talk about the report itself. >> chair peskin: wendy, we've just one piece of housekeeping to do. i've been informed by council that the changes -- the amendments to item number two were substantive, so i'm going to make a motion to rescind the vote on item number two, and we'll take that without objection, and we will continue the item one week to our meeting of the 29 of july and we'll take that without objection. and now we can go back to our regularly scheduled program.
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>> thank you, chairman. >> thank you very much, director raphael and supervisor peskin. i'm very pleased to stand before you today to talk briefly about this technical report that was called for. it was a wonderful present for the city to work on this, the departments, the staff. so the report really is the answer to the question is what does it look like to achieve net zero emissions in san francisco. it was a question that the director asked me when i started at the department, and this report is the beginning of that answer. we know where our emissions come from. about half of the emissions
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come from buildings and about half from transportation, and so therefore, we have a path forward. we know where we need to make those deep reductions. and i'm going to get to the punch lines first and early. we have about ten years to ask. and what this graph -- to act. what this graph says in that red dashed line, that is the business as usual. it doesn't mean doing nothing. it absolutely means continuing with the climate programs and policies that we have to date. however, in a growing economy and with a growing population, we could see our emissions from 2017 to 2050 rising up about 21%, and we all know that is the wrong direction and not what this city needs or wants. on the other hand, there is really good news. if we continue to move forward on the goals that we have set for ourselves, as director raphael has talked about, we could see a 68% reduction in our emissions versus our 1990
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levels, which is how we set our targets currently for the city of 68%. that is an astounding amount, and what i'm going to share with you next is a few ways that we think we could get on this 98%. the way that we looked at this report and the technical analysis, i want to say is it's a model. we modelled the scenario of what san francisco should look like in the future. how did we do that? we based this scenario on the commitments that we've made to environment and sustainability. all new buildings, net zero emissions by 2030 and existing buildings, 2050. 80% of trips sustainable, and 25% of private vehicles electric by 2030. and then, continuing to reduce
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the amount of refuse or waste that we generate and dispose in the light of growing city and population and economy. so while we did the technical analysis on the core sectors that are driving emissions, building, transportation, and waste, we also took a look at the broad and inclusive benefits of taking action because we know that to be the city that san francisco wants to be, we need to provide those broad and inclusive equity benefits, environmental, economic, and resilience benefits while we are driving down emissions. we will be thinking more deeply about that in the climate action strategy to come. so for buildings, buildings are about half of our emissions today. what portion of that comes from commercial and residential? about half. the majority of emissions from building we know comes from
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natural gas. we have a very clean electricity supply. you'll be hearing about that in a minute from the sfpuc. so what did we look at that? the business as usual is we just maintain our business as usual, and we see an increase in the emissions. for the buildings, we see a decline from natural gas emissions, increasing building efficiency and making sure we continue to supply renewable electricity to all buildings. what about transportation? transportation is a very important sector for san francisco. it's not seeing the declines that other sectors have seen, but i want you to know that we are declining our emissions while the state is increasing.
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you'll hear from the transportation folks in a moment about what moves they're making to continue to cleanup our transportation infrastructure and those vehicles on the road. again, we could see an increase in our business as usual if we do not take action, and in the transportation sector, if we mode shift, if we move to bike-walk transit and get out of those vehicles, we could see a nice decline in emissions coupled with all vehicles on the road need to get off of diesel and gas and on to renewable fuel. so this is a nice waterfall graph and it shows that we need to take action in all sectors, building, transportation, and waste. by 2050 if we remain committed to those goals that we saw
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earlier, we can see a strict reduction again a growing economy. our emissions could trend upwards, and we could act against them to reduce emissions. what you'll notice at the far end of this graph is residual emissions. those are the emissions that we can't eliminate or abate today. that doesn't mean that there won't be other emissions that -- missions that help us eliminate those emissions. so with that, i just want to close my remarks by saying it has been such a great honor to shepherd this report to you. i'm so appreciative that you called for it?
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and we are so honored to be able to have led the charge for the city and for the supervisors to bring you this report and the findings. and with that, i will turn it over to the next speaker, correct? >> supervisor mandelman: yes, who i believe is mike hyams from sfpuc. i am, as i said, going to request that our clerk put on the three-minute timer. we have about eight city staff making various presentations, so here we go. >> okay. good afternoon, supervisors. my name's michael hyams. i'm the director of the cleanpowersf program. i'm here today on behalf of the
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san francisco public utilities commission to share with you information from a public emissions standpoint. as a city, we've made significant progress in shifting the sources of our electricity to renewable energy. for context, i wanted it known from the outset that multiple agencies provide electricity supply through multiple agencies in san francisco.
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>> -- and you can see a mark -- a marked improvement. we're now we're ae now 70% renewable as
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per 2017. this slide is a projection looking out to 2025, and we're predicting that the city will be using # 5% renewable power at that time with average emissions that's almost 90% less than the 1990 levels for the city's power supply. i know my time's running out here -- >> supervisor mandelman: how many more slides do you have? >> this is the last slide, and this is the segue to -- i wanted to include this really to put in perspective how much more this is than burning gas or natural gas. electricity service from hetch hetchy power and our cleanpowersf power product is
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emission free, so transferring to these sources would limg nate greenhouse gas emissions, and that -- eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, and that's my time, and i will turn it over to my next. >> supervisor mandelman: i will be talking to folks about how to get more people on supergreen because clearly that's an important next step. so next up, we have m.t.a., the transportation authority and department of the environment presenting, but first up, we have sarah jones from the m.t.a. >> good afternoon. the sfmta thanks the supervisor for introducing the resolution and all the work on the focus 2030 report. so where we are is that today, too much travel in san francisco happens by car whether it's people driving themselves, people using ride hail or the growing use of delivery services, this is the most harmful transportation choice that people can manke,
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and it's making other forms of travel less appealing, which is further restricting our emission issues. transportation currently generates approximately half of all citywide emissions as you've heard, and our city's transportation infrastructure itself is vulnerable to the effects of climate change. so we have a big problem and there's both bad news and good news about it. the bad news is that what we're doing right now is affecting our climate, and even with all we've accomplished, the business as usual solution isn't a solution at all. but the good news is that we together can change this. so first, let's start by thinking about what we have accomplished. our 2017 travel decision survey showed that san francisco reached its old mode share goal with more than 52% of all trips
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to, from, and within san francisco using bicycling, transit, and walking. what this means is that over half the trips in the city are generating just the tiniest sectors of emissions. muni alone has the greenest fleet in america. it carries 26% of trips and is responsible for less than one half of 1% of emissions. san francisco has operated transit first for over 50 years. from transit to clean taxis to the safe routes to school program, nearly everything that m.t.a. does has a strong nexus with the city's climate goals. but as important as this work has been, focus 2030 indicates that business as usual won't make much of a dent in car use.
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we need to recognize the goal of 80% of sustainable tripped tripped -- trips by 2030, and we need to take big steps to do that. we need to pursue approaches that will all contribute to the critical goal that is the only answer to our climate, our safety, our liveability and our equity issues, reduce dependence on cars. i won't go through all of my examples on that, just one, which is you're going to hear about pricing from my colleagues at sfcta. an equitiable pricing system must be accompanied -- >> supervisor mandelman: miss -- >> so i'll just wrap up. this is my final slide. we've been a climate leader in the past and we're uniquely positioned to do so. what i've said here today is
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not news to anyone. it is going to take transformation and change, which is a difficult process. even when we're doing something that is going to result in a more livable city for all of us. we're going to implement together the 2030 strategy which is going to implement -- 2050 strategy, which is going to implement the 2030 report. >> supervisor mandelman: and i believe we're going to hear from the transportation authority. >> so san francisco relies on federal, state, and local options to meet our goals. m.t.c. is -- currently has just kicked off his plan bay area --
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its plan bay area process. this is something where in the prior strategy it also says greenhouse gas emission goals for the whole region. in the last plan, many san francisco projects were identified as high priorities, and planned area also sets the regional funding goals for state, federal, and local funding. as we know, funding is one of the things that we need the most to advance our own key priorities to advance the region and the state, things like san francisco's core capacity program, a second tube across the bay, high speed and toll lanes, and also high speed rail to connect other parts of the state.
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it in addition to funding, it's important to look to state and federal government for the policies they're setting. these also impact our abilities to set climate goals, including regulations around emerging mobility. so pricing programs, those encourage mode shifts from solo
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driving to transit walking or biking but also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, particularate matter emissions. it has important cobenefits in that it increases transit reliability, speeds, frequencies, and reducing bicycle and pedestrians conflicts which was included in the vision zero action strategy. another thing is you can invest the net revenues from the program that -- i have one more slide to say. in -- and then, the transportation authorities t.n.c.s report estimated that
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ride hailing has generated almost 300,000 new miles and causing 47% of the rides congestion in 2010. pricing would allow us to manage this use, and hopefully moving forward, as well. thank you, and i'm turning it over to lowell from s.f. environment. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. >> hi. good afternoon. my name is lowell chu from the department of the environment, and i'm here to give you all a snapshot of the transportation future. we need to continue prioritizing transit, biking, and walking, but at the same time we have to shift the focus
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to zero emission vehicles by -- we need to direct the people towards other modes of transportation while simultaneously -- as you can see, over 450,000 vehicled registered in the city and over 135,000 commutes in daily and with 45,000 network company vehicles operating on our roads, it's quite challenging. at the same time, the medium and heavy duty vehicle sector, as well as our neighbors and residents in the multivehicle dwellings, face a particular challenge in vehicle charging in particular. speaking of multivehicle families, their multibuildings have challenges -- as a result, they really depend on the
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publicly accessible charging network. we have over 10,500 electrical vehicles. we know that we can expand this public charging network particularly in the gaps you see in the map known as charging deserts. [please stand by]
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-- specific actions in six strategic areas that we'll meade to implement -- we'll need to implement that goal. and electricity is the fuel of the future and we need to implement it in existing modes. last slide -- oops. >> it was your last slide. [laughter]. >> so i'll make it up. so renewable electricity, will get us to a net-zero system which is crucial to become a net carbon city. and our 2030 goals are 35% of certification and sustainable modes will help to get us there. in closing with the necessary capital, political and public support, we can meet these goals and along with our complementary
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goal of zero traffic fatalities to not only achieve our 2030 goal but to improve the lives of all. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chu. that gets us through electricity and transportation and we still have buildings. barry cooper? from the department of the environment. >> thank you. good afternoon, supervisor mandelman and the members of the committee. i'll quickly take you through buildings. so the challenge with buildings is in many ways similar to transport. how do we get to zero emissions? and that's a pretty straightforward formula. we need to make sure that our building stock is energy efficient, that we have 100% renewable electricity and we have tools to do that, that we have heard about today. and we're ensuring that we're using it in our built environment. so how will we make progress on that simple formula? a key policy opportunity is a policy signal from the city directly communicated to the city favoring all electric
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buildings in support of meeting its zero emission goals. so the introduction of today's proposal to ensure that the city installs no new natural gas using infrastructure in either the major alteration or the new construction of its own facilities is a key first step. and then the broader question of how do we get there city-wide in our new construction and our built environment is the subject of a task force that mayor breed has called for that we're working and preparing for and the outcome of that we'll talk about on this today. pardon me. it's important now to not just talk about where we need to go but what we need to get through to get there. so there's some significant challenges to making this transition and there's reason yes our built environment isn't all electric today. one of the key elements is the california energy code. that is the instrument of a great deal of the energy efficiency benefits that we have as san franciscoians and a key resource for us but it's been
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designed and improved over a 40-year period to discourage the development of new electric power plants because that was our greatest concern in the 197 is. so we're working with the energy commission and they've very much recognized the need to support the decarbonization of buildings as the primary goal. but it does take time to make the changes that are necessary at the state level. and every building that goes through the planning and permitting process in san francisco has to comply with the energy code. so we can't push things that would involve the -- that don't have a straightforward way for compliance for all buildings. next, because -- sorry -- commonly used gas to supply most thermal loads to wate heat our r and to support that transition and to improve their comfort and embrace this path to a clean, efficient future. and the key example would be looking at two sectors -- affordable housing, and a lot of the best examples of building
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stock leading the way is actually coming from our local developers. and because they're able to find all-electric paths that were efficient and didn't increase their first costs, they've committed to new construction such as the macy veteran department currently built in treasure island, committing to all electric already. similarly, the city has a total of 18 major projects that are currently going towards being all electric, and the southeast community center is one key example. and the task force, the task before the private sector -- the public/private task force to decarbonize and have a plan to decarbonize our built environment is a roadmap, a specific step-by-step process, with the zero-emissions road map that has the actions that are necessary to meet those ends. so we're looking forward to that to work together. thank you for your time. >> thank you, mr. cooper. still on buildings we have lisa fisher from planning.
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>> hello, supervisors. thank you for declaring this climate emergency. our own commission president has urged us strongly -- in fact, she was recently quoted as telling us to stop the bureaucratic bullshit and actually to address this crisis. we want to partner with you to find meaningful solutions. the planning department -- i forgot to tell you that i'm lisa fisher -- sorry, sorry. the planning department has identified four unique avenues to supporting this climate action, connecting land use and design with the spaces between the buildings, the buildings themselves, and transportation. to reduce our emissions and to increase renewables. first, we have early interface with projects and working with them from inception that offers key opportunities to enhancing the outcomes and integrates these goals, sometimes before their requirements. for example, through the planning designer review process
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of major developments we can enhance resource efficiency and get those all-electric buildings. through integrated planning, partnerships and funding, we develop comprehensive area plans. and this is our way of helping to direct growth to help amplify the environmental and climate benefits. the central plans have pushed beyond the current regulations in timely areas, all new buildings will be 100% greenhouse gas-free electricity and have solar p.v. and living roofs. we, of course, have a multifaceted toolbox, including regulatory construct like the planning code where we support positive aims through better roofs, better streets and urban design guidelines and the transportation demand management program and more. we were recently the first city to get rid of minimum parking requirements. and then we have non-regulatory tools where we can push and support climate through things like the plant finder tool, where we get a greener and more
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biodiverse city that also supports climate sequestration. of course, we intervene and inconvene several interagency efforts on design review and streets and buildings. how we guide and implement our growth is critical to meeting our climate goals and ensuring a diverse and equitiable and more inclusive and affordable community. through these avenues for positive influence, we are directly influencing all of the pipeline of residential and commercial development with our partners at oewd and ocii. we believe that our city has an opportunity to enhance and to strengthen our buildings, but we need to do so quicker. we look forward to working with the board and our fellow agencies and the development community and the public at large to turn our opportunities into challenges, to better coordinate our growth and development, to balance our needs, to maximize the benefits through all of the pavement that we turn, and engage the
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community, and increase funding for important projects. thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. our next -- next up we have from the department of public health, the talk about health and equity. >> good afternoon, i am dr. argagon, with the city and county of san francisco and with the health division at the department of public health. i am a native san franciscoian and born and raised in the mission district and i live in district 8 where we raise three children, currently 18 through 23 years old. so this issue affects the future of my children and their children. i'm going to borrow some text from the american public health association and adapted to san francisco. the health of san francisco residents and visitors faces two great challenges -- climate change and racial health and equities. and climate change affects the health of every community in san francisco.
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beyond its direct health impacts, climate change increases food insecurity and worsens air pollution and reduces our access to clean air and water, and displaces people from their homes and causes widespread social and economic disruption. according to the world bank, climate change threatens our fragile existence on this planet. racial health inequities and climate change are deeply interconnected. climate change acts as a threat multiplier, exacerbating poverty, racism, environmental degredation and political instability. and climate change is a problem rooted in our -- in structural racism and systems of economic exclusion and individualistic values of our society and economy. eliminating racial health inequities and resolving climate change requires a radical approach with policy and systems change and taking on the
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powerful interests that put profits before people and impede the transformational change needed to achieve racial and economic equity and a healthy climate for all. fortunately, many climate solutions offer huge health benefits. in fact, many strategies to reduce climate pollution are the same strategie strategies that t implement to reduce racial health inequity. yes, it's a climate health emergency, and the health and well-being of the communities that we serve are in danger. as witnessed by the increased occurrence of disasters and wildfires and extreme weather. our actions now will affect the magnitude of climate impacts to our most vulnerable communities and how well they recover in the aftermath of climate related disasters. the department of public health has a critical role in addressing this as an urgent threat. the key message that i want to emphasize to us is that as a city, as human beings fiz physiologically and our
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infrastructure is not acclimated to changes in temperature. while our overall temperature will increase, we'll see more cool days and hot days, with the extreme temperatures that are going to be our biggest problem. i want to end with three key messages -- climate change disproportionately impacts the low-income communities and communities of color. and health inequities share the same root causes, and addressing climate change and health inequities requires transformational changes in our systems and communities. thank you. [applause] >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, dr. argon. and i think that our last departmental presentation is from heather green of the city administrator's office. hello. >> good afternoon, supervisors. heather green with capital planning. i have no slides. but i'm here to just say thank you to all of the departments working on this and especially
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to the director rafael for all of the information that she's provided us in the partnership between our two departments. so we look forward to all of the climate action strategy work ahead. one thing that we know that we have heard in lots of different ways today from lots of different departments is about the fact that we'll need to invest and work differently. and we need to make sure that we have our priorities straight and we spend money where we need to spend it so we can achieve all of these goals. that is our office's area of expertise for the city. and we did something very similar years back for the seawall, we gathered experts together around a table and introduce aid working group strategy for the financing of that multigenerational need. and that's something that we look forward to doing on this front as well. so we'll look forward to that work and to showcasing what we plan to do in the 10-year capital plan. just another place that people can look to see how the city is thinking and that we really are finding the korea sources and dedicating what we need to make
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progress. thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, miss green. director rafael. >> so thank you. and to wrap up a couple thoughts -- you -- i think that anyone who listened to this presentation would be left with understanding that city staff, city departments, elected officials, are all fully committed and understand the importance of our work. so i want to thank you for giving us the opportunity for sharing our thoughts with you, whether it's the department of public health, the airport, the m.t.a., the planning department, the p.u.c., we are all here because we believe that this is the most important work. when we look at what we need to do as a city, and the city staff going forward, we start with the acceleration and the focus that this hearing has offered us. and we understand that our first
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task is to update the underpinning policies that focus our attention and set our goals. those are in statute and they're chapter 9 of the environment code. so we will be working in the next few months through next year to update chapter 9. and we will come back too with those proposals. at the end after working on chapter 9, what we ultimately need to end up with is what we are calling a paris climate action strategy. and the reason that paris compliant is important is because it's pointing us in the direction of equity, inclusiveness, and making sure that the most vulnerable among us are the first on our thought process and the first on our resource allocation. so i'm so grateful that the city administrator has put her office forward and saying that she will help us with the hard work of figuring out how we will fund the recommendations that are going to arise through these two processes.
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so at the end of the day as we look forward and as we envision the city we want, and as we understand that san francisco is indeed a city who rehearses the future, and we know that cities around the world are looking to us for leadership, we are also looking to them for inspiration and to learning and we know that it's the leadership of our community, the leadership of our elected officials and the commitment of city staff that is going to be our best hope for the future. so thank you for this opportunity. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, director rafael. so -- and thank you to all of the city staff who have presented and presented briefly, concisely and effectively this afternoon. i'm going to read some names and i ask that when you hear your name that you stand up, you go stand in line with your right of the room. and you will have two minutes. you should feel no need to repeat other speakers. and i'm going to just start
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calling. joanie i are eisen, and zach zubin and josh cliff and denise louis, and milo weatherall. and christopher peterson. victoria gu. bob hall. sharea greenwa well everyonld. and ellen coivisto. and i have more cards that i will read once these folks have -- once we have gotten through these folks. and it would be great if folks -- if you have these blue cards that you can get in the front of the room, if you could bring them up and i can call your name. so, okay, let's start. joanie eisen. >> okay, yes. i'm an artist and a long-time s.f. resident and a board member of s.f. tomorrow and the citizens' climate lobby, and with the democratic club.
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thank you, supervisors, for recognizing the crisis by declaring an emergency. and thanks s.f. environment for the formidable action starting point of focus 2030, and all of your other emission reducing programs. and thanks to the other departments for their own efforts to reduce the emissions. and i do appreciate the cooperation that i heard about today among agencies. but it is time for all agencies -- all agencies to coordinate these climate efforts instead of operating in isolation to avoid needless competition and diewpgdz. duplication. i ask the mayor to enforce this. and it's up to the board to find the enormous money that will takes to decarbonize all buildings and transportation to provide 100% clean electricity to protect non-affluent people from being forced out for non-compliance with any burdensome law and to create clean energy jobs that pay a living wage. these funds must be in place
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before enacting any law that would harm individuals who can't afford to comply. the cost of inaction will be far more than the cost of timely action. we need to think long term in generational, not election cycles. for everyone's children and their children's children, the money must be found and spent now before it's too late. greenhouse gas emissions don't respect borders. the city must set an example for other cities to follow and to join in planning and regional summit for september and urge nations to step up. and we must pay attention to successes in other localities and try it here. and it's a pay-as-you-save program for energy upgrades to buildings and open to all utility customers, business, residential, regardless of income or credit score or renter status. and including california... >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. next speaker.
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>> good afternoon, denise louis here. i'll start with my conclusion. i urge you to mitigate negative impacts of climate change on our unirrigated trees and on biodiversity in general. by adopting calfar vegetation guidelines and requiring all city agent agencies to embrace r resolution. about half of the city-owned trees are in our parks. rec and park says that it's unmanaged unirrigated trees are fine, but can we show what's on the screen here? so one of the photos shows -- was taken in 2014. and the other one in 2019, a five-year difference. and the one is more green and
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the other is more recent and is more brown. okay, so neighboring residents and they have indicated a fear of catastrophic wildfire to rec and park who responds that we will not remove the tall grass and the trees are fine and we only recommend that you have a 30-foot defensible space around your home. i urge you to require that city agencies adopt calfar guidelines, including spacing between trees and fire safe plant choices. i further urge you to require the city agencies to embrace the biodiversity solution, however, the plants in rec and park's nursery are overwhelmingly not native to san francisco. we have known for years that birds, insects and native plants
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are declining in population and species due to human activity and climate change. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. next speaker. >> before we go into any discuss i want to make it clear to you that you talk about the most vulnerable people? the most vulnerable people are the people that's homeless. you got over 88,011 people who are homeless out in san francisco. and a review of that file is the additional 30% on top of that 8,011 homeless. those are the most vulnerable people who are out suffering behind these pollutant conditions that you claim thaw want to rem -- that you want to remedy. and you are talking about contamination and areas that are vulnerable to unfair discriminatory practices and the environmental situations? i ain't heard nothing about the shipyard. you got cancer causing
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radioactive material that has wiped out thousands of my generation and future generations because of that radioactive goddamned cancer-causing material. you've got the same kind of contaminated material out there at treasure island. but yet you're building brand-new apartment complexes out there and you want to protect the environment? come on, who in the hell you think that you're fooling with that top-class professional bullshit? you've got a lot of nerve. and about you taxing the people that are traveling and commuting back and forth and back and forth to their jobs and using uber and lyft to get to their jobs and you want to tax them and you are going to call that "congestion" and blame them for it? when the truth of the matter is that the department of transportation and caltra in everyone s is the reason that you've got that congestion downtown because caltrans and the department o department of n use t.n.t. explosives and dynamite and blew up that bay bridge. and after blowing up the last
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section of the bay bridge you give a press conference and saying that you want to tax gasoline drivers in order to maintain our roads and our bridges. you are a goddamned liar and you just got finished using dynamite to blow up the goddamned bay bridge. and you have them side-by-side with each other... (indiscernible). >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. thank you. >> thank you, mr. wright. your time is expired. >> (indiscernible). >> clerk: mr. white, your time is expired and allow the next speaker. thank you. >> you talking about -- (indiscernible) you let them talk. >> supervisor mandelman: next speaker. >> (indiscernible). >> clerk: next speaker,
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please. next speaker. >> hi, my name is zach zuben and i'm speaking on behalf of urban environmentalists and we submitted a petition and signed by more than 79,000 residents to have in-fill housing as a climate solution. and all of the departments that put together the report, it was great work, but housing is something that was not included. we would like it to be included. local researchers found that in-fill housing could be one of the top measures to reduce emissions, global emissions, in the 2030 timeframe for cities like san francisco. and that's because we already have less driving and more compact buildings and cleaner electricity and mild climate compared to the suburbs and other areas of the country. and so we support accounting for the reductions in global emissions, resulting from people moving into san francisco, not just reducing emissions from
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within the city from existing residents. and as the city proceeds with these other decarbonization measures that the benefits that allow more people to live here will only be enhanced for the climate. most of the city's existing buildings are older and they lack air conditioning which recent studies have shown are much more expensive to electrify, so new construction is an opportunity particularly there. and we'd like to applaud the -- the focused report on more sustainable transportation modes that san francisco can support. and just want to finally say that, of course, equity and affordability should be, you know, connected to all of these goals. thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. next speaker. >> my name is josh clip, an attorney and a san francisco resident and a forest advocate. i want