Emeryville: the Worst City in Northern Alameda County For Climate Change Policy

Climate Change Policy: Emeryville Stuck in 11th Place in Alameda County 

All the Talk From City Hall About Meeting the Climate Challenge Appears to be Nothing But Talk

The Bay Area’s Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force released their 2024-’25 Alameda County Scorecard report this week, revealing Emeryville to be once again in last place among cities in the progressive northern section of the county on critical climate infrastructure and policy.  The task force, a Bay Area wide coalition of elected officials, city and county staff, community based non-governmental organizations, youth, environmental and social activists and “front line communities”, released the scorecard Thursday.

Emeryville: Talk, Talk, Talk

Emeryville City Hall has engaged in a lot of conspicuous and heated rhetoric about meeting its climate change challenge over the years.  That appears to have been nothing as much as facile civic boosterism, especially in light of the second CEMTF study.  The independent CEMTF study shows something different, countering Emeryville's sunny prognosis.  The climate scorecard shows Emeryville, with an overall score of 48: 11th place among 15 Alameda County cities the task force studied, the same ranking as the last time the task force did their evaluation. 

UPDATE:  It should be noted that the Task Force missed an Emeryville ordinance that prohibits new gas stations and that fact should increase the City's score (see note below).

Besides the unique case of Emeryville, the worst scoring cities came from the politically conservative, heavily Republican southern portion of Alameda County with the exceptions of Hayward and Livermore who both scored 70, placing them tied for third place.

Although the task force assigned Emeryville a score of 48 on the checklist this time, far lower than every other neighboring city,  an improvement was shown over the 44 Emeryville received in the 2023-24 scorecard.  The problem for Emeryville is that most other cities in the county also improved their scores, leaving the little city with the same ranking as last time.  Only four other cities scored worse than Emeryville, including Dublin who dropped to last place with a dismal score of 28 after sharing with Emeryville 11th place last time.

Emeryville is stuck in 11th place, two studies
running.

The cities of Berkeley and Oakland both shared the top place with scores of 78 each.  
 

The climate task force teamed up with undergraduate students at the University of California Berkeley to produce the document entitled ‘Alameda County Climate Scorecard 2024-2025’.  Motivating the partnership is the desire to inspire local communities to move the needle to meet the challenges facing humanity brought by the climate change crisis.  

The CEMTF sums up the challenge: From air pollution equity to transportation, our scorecard measures the climate progress of cities in their quest to meet climate challenges and rise to climate opportunities especially because no climate issue in the Bay Area or globally is just about climate - our scorecard aims to honor the intersectionality of climate change and its impacts on our community, especially in the Bay with its simultaneous rich diversity and astronomical inequality.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Alameda County Climate Scorecard missed that the Emeryville City Council effectively prohibited the development of new gas stations within city limits with passage of a Council approved ordinance in June 2024.   Construction of new structures for traditional "auto-centric" uses, including gas stations, car washes, and auto dealerships is restricted.  Thanks to the Tattler reader that brought this to our attention and to Council member Priforce for providing the details.  The Task Force has been notified of this change.  This will improve Emeryville's score a little, but we're not sure by how much.