California passed the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006, establishing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals and requiring local governments and state agencies to take initiative to meet those goal, as well as establishing a state cap-and-trade program. As a result, many local governments began publishing climate action plans (CAPs) to establish jurisdiction-specific goals, whether city-wide, county-wide, or regional, as well as outline the actions they plan to implement to achieve GHG emissions reduction targets. California also passed the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act in 2015, which mandated allocation of cap-and-trade-generated funds towards sustainable projects benefiting and located in disadvantaged communities (DACs). DACs are defined as communities facing above-average social, financial, health, and environmental burden. This bill was passed to promote equity across the state
The main goal of this dissertation was to explore ways to change and improve efforts by local jurisdictions to mitigate climate change. While it focused on the roles of life cycle assessment (LCA) and equity in climate action planning, it also examines the ways that climate action plans consider the impact of community choice aggregators (CCAs) on GHG emissions reduction. Ultimately, this research consisted of four parts: 1. Using life cycle assessment and life cycle cost assessment to prioritize emissions reduction strategies considered in CAPs, with a focus on the transportation sector; 2. Critically reviewing CAPs across California to gauge the extent to which they include emissions, economic, and equity data, and identifying correlations with demographic data, and providing recommendations on how to better include equity in CAPs; 3. Inspired by findings during the CAP critical review, critiquing the assumptions made and calculations undertaken to attribute emissions reduction potential to the transition from an incumbent utility to a community choice aggregator (CCA), and subsequently offering recommendations; and 4. Implementing a survey to better understand how jurisdictions currently approach climate action planning and implementation, with a focus on the roles of life cycle assessment (LCA) and equity, to identify barriers to sustainable action as well as opportunities for change.