Sierra Club Sues|San Diego County

SAN DIEGO (CN) - San Diego County's "Climate Action Plan" is so deficient it's illegal, the Sierra Club claims in Superior Court.

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"While recognizing that '[c]limate change is one of the most urgent global issues' with effects including 'loss of species' and human hunger and death, the San Diego region's largest and most powerful public agency has taken the position that it will not do its part to stabilize the climate," the Sierra Club says in its complaint against the county.

"Instead, respondent County of San Diego ('County') makes decisions without considering either minimum climate stabilization requirements or feasible mitigation measures, thus contributing to the ultimate human catastrophe: climate destabilization."

The complaint adds: "In addition to turning a blind eye to the science of climate-stabilization criteria, County failed to keep its own promises to the public. Specifically, the Climate Action Plan fails to meet the requirements of Mitigation Measure CC-1.2, which County promised and relied upon in approving the 2011 County General Plan Update Final Environmental Impact Report."

In its 2011 General Plan EIR, the county promised it would "'Prepare a County Climate Change Action Plan with an update baseline inventory of greenhouse gas emissions from all sources, more detailed greenhouse emissions reduction targets and deadlines, and a comprehensible and enforceable GHG emissions reduction targets that will achieve a 17 percent reduction in emissions from county operations from 2006 to 2020 and a 9 percent reduction in community emissions between 2006 and 2020,'" according to the complaint.

The Sierra Club says it informed the county that its plan was legally deficient, to no avail.

It claims, among other things, that "instead of achieving reductions," the county's plan "expressly concedes 'it does not ensure reductions,'" and that "instead of providing comprehensible and enforceable GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions reductions measures, the CAP provides only ideas which may or may not be implemented, may or may not reduce GHG emissions."

The Sierra Club claims the county did not prepare an adequate environmental impact report, in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act.

It wants the county's climate plan declared illegal, deficient, null and void, and it wants the county ordered to comply with CEQA, and costs.

The Sierra Club is represented by Mekaela Gladden with Briggs Law Corp., of Upland, and Malinda Dickenson of San Diego.

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