1) Revise CAAP Methodology to Center Just Transition Pathways 

Dudek’s definition of Just Transition is fundamentally flawed and demonstrates a lack of understanding of the Just Transition framework that was called for in the climate resolution that initiated the CAAP process. The county has repeatedly called for a Just Transition approach in all aspects of the development of this CAAP.  The county already has an approved General Plan which the county updated in January 2023 to comply with state environmental justice and climate action requirements. This CAAP emerged in response to the need to “build back better” from the pandemic by focusing on transformational solutions to historic, persistent and deepening socio-economic disparities in Yolo County. The American Rescue Plan funding that jump-started this process is specifically earmarked for community members - such as essential workers, BIPOC communities, small business owners, and youth- that were most impacted by the pandemic.

Dudek’s definition of Just Transition is confused and off base right from the start.  On page ix they write, “Just Transition moves a community towards climate smart policies and practices without further exacerbating socio-economic disparities.” We called for a CAAP that would be a roadmap for advancing economic, social and environmental equity and justice, not simply maintain the unjust status quo and prevent socio-economic disparities in Yolo County from worsening. This may seem like semantic nit picking but this really is a major design flaw in the CAAP methodology, because it is precisely the existing socio-economic disparities that is making the unfolding climate crisis brutal for marginalized communities. A just transition requires reducing socio-economic disparities and putting these goals at the heart of every climate solution.

Given this fundamental discrepancy in Dudek’s understanding of the purpose of this CAAP, I recommend immediately terminating the Dudek contract and allocating any remaining funds to the Equity and Engagement Technical Advisory Committee which was established by the commission to ensure that equity is advanced in all aspects of the CAAP. 

Recommended action: Work with the Equity and Engagement Technical Advisory Committee to revise the CAAP to be a Just Transition Roadmap that drives the systemic transformation necessary for an equitable, ecologically regenerative local economy.

2) Include the Gravel Industry 

The omission of the gravel mining industry from the CAAP is a big mistake that undermines the credibility of this plan. Focusing on the carbon footprint of rural Yolo County community members - some of the poorest people in the state -- while excluding the industry with the biggest carbon footprint in terms of lifecycle GHG emissions - is fundamentally unjust and simply bad public policy. The focus on agriculture with no focus on the mining sector will drive inequity in how climate solutions are implemented. 

If Clark Pacific’s and Cemex’ cement plants and other major GHG polluters are excluded because they are "stationary sources," regulated elsewhere, this should be discussed openly, with transparency. 

Our best chance at getting recalcitrant landowners to implement change is if we make it clear that every sector of the economy must undertake a Just Transition. Excluding the Yolo mining industry is a big mistake that should be corrected in the final draft.

Action: Amend Figure C-13 to include the lands along Cache Creek zoned for industrial gravel mining, which can be seen on the map of past, present and future mining on page 14 of the county’s Off-Channel Mining Plan for Cache Creek.  

Action: In Natural and Working Lands Appendix C, include a discussion of the aggregate mining industry and the use of aggregate in perpetuating fossil-fuel intensive road-building, highway construction (such as the 1-80 expansion project), urban sprawl and other sectors of unsustainable development. In other words, both upstream and downstream emission should be evaluated and mitigated.

3) Prioritize Hazard Pay and Financial Relief for Farm Workers

The Woodland Daily Democrat recently reported that Congressman Mike Thompson is pushing for permanent agricultural relief in the farm bill. Farmers receiving federal assistance should be required to pay their workers for wages lost due to climate change-impacted extreme weather as a condition for receiving “permanent relief”.

Action: Add to HC6 Pg. 192 -  Require hazard pay for farm workers required to work during extreme weather events and compensate agricultural workers for lost pay due to work lost from climate change induced impacts.

Action: Add - Prioritize building affordable housing for farmworkers. 

4) Require Environmentally AND Socially Responsible Purchasing

Procurement - responsible purchasing - is a critical Just Transition pathway. This action should include SOCIALLY and Environmentally Responsible purchasing. 

Yolo County has some of the highest levels of inequality in the state. Less than 30% of Yolo County’s businesses are women owned. What percentage of Yolo County government purchasing goes to businesses from historically marginalized communities? This CAAP should set specific equity goals to remedy these significant disparities.  

Action: Create action HCP 6b “Develop social justice criteria for county procurement to be included in every RFP. Work with Equity and Engagement TAC to remove barriers in county procurement. Develop socially responsible purchasing policies that expand opportunities for MBE/DBE, veteran-owned, and women-owned local businesses.” 

5) Revise Sustainable Development End Goal to “Economic, Social and Ecological Just Transition”

Sustainable Development is a vague term that obscures the fact that Yolo County’s extractivist industries – agriculture, mining – and urban sprawl – are the root causes of the climate crisis. The current model of economic development is fundamentally unsustainable. The whole point of this CAAP was to develop strategies that help us transition our local economy to enterprises that drive equity and generate ecological health and well-being for all rather than more climate pollution, depletion of nature, and inequality.   The overarching end goal of the CAAP should be described as “Economic, Social and Ecological Just Transition - not “Sustainable Development. 

Action: Revise measure HC8 to be “Inclusive Economic Development” 

Add action: Allocate a minimum of 40% of CAAP implementation funding to frontline communities to remedy socio-economic disparities and build resilience.

Add action: Create a county position to support the development of cooperative enterprises and access to land for historically marginalized communities.

6) Remove Working Lands Carbon Credit Scheme

Offset strategies are trumped by economists as “elegant and efficient market-based solutions.” Carbon credit offset schemes may sound good, but in reality, these carbon credit schemes simply don’t work. They reward entrenched polluters that contributed the most to the climate crisis and undermine transformative, just climate solutions. 

Offsets are like modern day indulgences that allow the biggest polluters - like Chevron— to buy carbon credits instead of making real reductions in GHG emissions. Carbon markets have had plenty of time to prove their worth, but they have been discredited over and over again. That is why UC Davis is not using offsets in their Fossil Free Plan and neither should Yolo County. 

Economists always promise that credits will be “real, additional and verifiable”. But we all watched those “real, additional and verifiable” carbon credits from tree plantations go up in smoke during recent forest fires. A family farmer in Wisconsin recently explained in the Davis Enterprise how California’s cap and trade scheme is backfiring because it rewards big industrial dairies for their “methane capture” at the expense of small, more sustainable dairies. 

Furthermore, UC Davis soil experts have raised concerns that the carbon storage capacity in the soil used by industrial agriculture is vastly overestimated. Carbon needs to be stored deep in the soil in order for it to be permanent otherwise the carbon is easily disturbed and returned to the atmosphere. Farmers are deep ripping their land to remove orchards all over the county. Wetland plants, on the other hand, help store carbon deep in the soil and help water penetrate into the aquifer.

We can not afford to be distracted with these kinds of perverse, discredited schemes and focus instead on advancing a just transition to an equitable, ecologically sustainable local economy.   

Action: In the Funding and Financing Chapter 7 on page. 216, remove the carbon credit exchange from the CAAP.

7) Prioritize and restore wetland restoration

Wetlands are the most effective ecosystem for drawing down carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in the soil - and were a thriving part of the Yolo bio-region before settler-colonial farming practices destroyed them along with the lifeways of Wintun people who nurtured and tended them. 

Native Californian cultural practitioner Diana Almendariz has shared how tule wetlands actually create an inch of carbon-rich topsoil a year. Traditional ecological stewardship practices cultivated rich, biodiverse wetlands that helped clean the water, enhance biodiversity and facilitated aquifer recharge as deeply-rooted, culturally-significant Native plants helped create underground channels for water to percolate. 

Healthy wetlands are also our best line of defense against mosquito vector borne diseases, such as West Nile and Yellow Fever, carried by invasive mosquitos that thrive in degraded lands. Healthy wetlands support birds, bats, fish, dragonflies and other critters that can keep exotic, life-threatening mosquito populations in check. Restoring wetlands are critically important for public health, carbon and water storage, buffering against the extremes of climate change and affirming Wintun homeland culture and stewardship.ACTION: Increase the goal of 100 acres of wetland restoration to 5,000 acres.

 8) Incorporate the Yolo County 2021 Sustainability Plan and 30 x 30 Goals

The Yolo County Sustainability Plan approved in 2021 includes a number of key ecological just transition strategies that should be incorporated into the CAAP. The State of California has become a leading champion of  the global movement to conserve 30% of land and water by 2030 - referred to as 30 x 30.¹ Yolo County should do its part as well. This will entail allowing more surface water to flow in Cache Creek so that it reaches the Sacramento River, restoring marshlands, riparian forests, native grasslands and essential wildlife corridors.

Action: Add restoration and conservation of 30% of Yolo County’s lands and waters by 2030. 

9) Center Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Homeland Stewardship

As the Yolo bioregion's original stewards, the  Patwin-Wintun people were the first ecologists, biologists, hydrologists, botanists, and land managers.They are the original experts in environmental sustainability. Restoring traditional ecological stewardship and incorporating traditional ecological knowledge into land management is key to restoring ecological and social resilience.

Action: Work with Wintun homeland cultural-practitioners and culture-bearers to restore responsible, just, bioregional ecological stewardship. Technologies and practices such as cultural burning, tending to Native plants, wetland restoration, care for wildlife and land management should be prioritized as critical just transition strategies.

10) Re-establish Climate Action Commission as an independent oversight body

Since the very beginning of the Yolo County Climate Action Commission, I have repeatedly asked the 12-member commission to review the climate impacts of the gravel mining industry and recommend concrete (excuse the pun!) solutions as part of the CAAP process. 

Companies like Teichert and Clark Pacific are among the largest campaign contributors to county supervisor elections. It appears the gravel and cement industry’s oversized and unaccounted for carbon footprint is matched by their oversized political influence in Yolo County. Perhaps this explains why the county has repeatedly failed by a longshot to meet their GHG emissions targets. This CAAP provides no explanation of why the county missed their targets.

The exclusion of the mining industry in this draft CAAP underscores the failure of Yolo County to hold themselves accountable to their GHG commitments. This is why we need a commission that can think and act and think independently from the county. Let’s give this CAAP the best chance at success by re-establishing the commission as an independent citizen’s oversight body. Present and future generations are counting on us to get this right.

Action: Re-establish the climate action and adaptation commission as an independent body with its own staffing and budget, capable of enforcing the implementation and monitoring of the CAAP.

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¹ EO N-82-20 (October 2020) directs State agencies to deploy nature- based strategies to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in California’s natural and working lands. The order sets a goal to conserve 30% of California’s land and coastal waters by 2030 (often referred to as 30x30). To implement EO N-82-20, CNRA developed the Natural and Working Lands Climate Smart Strategy, which defines natural and working landscapes and identifies land management actions that will help achieve carbon neutrality in alignment with AB 1279 and the 2022 Scoping Plan Update for Achieving Carbon Neutrality (CNRA 2022 and CARB 2022)