Response to Grand Jury Report Form Report Title:*

Climate change mitigation efforts by Marin governments have been notably effective in meeting their goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Response: Agree. The City agrees that Marin governments have largely met greenhouse gas reduction goals set in the Marin County Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan, the Marin County Climate Action Plan (2015 Update) and other local benchmarks. The City notes that significant further reductions are necessary to meet recent goals set by State of California as well as reductions necessary to meet scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut as quickly as possible in order to limit the most severe impacts of climate change.

Adaptation planning is essential to protect local public utility and transportation infrastructure as well as private property interests, and to enable Marin's citizens to maintain their current standards of living. Response: Agree.

With the BayWAVE and C-SMART initial vulnerability assessments completed, the county is now well-positioned to focus on adaptation planning and policies related to sea level rise. Response: Agree.

The existing adaptation efforts across the county pay insufficient attention to the other potential effects of climate change, including impacts on public health, ecosystems, and social equity. Response: Partially disagree. The City agrees that the projected effects of climate change include significant impacts on public health, ecosystems, and social equity, and that all the aforementioned must be an integral part of adaptation strategies. Additionally, the City believes it's efforts in this regard can always improve. That said, the City routinely draws upon the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) Adapting to Rising Tides (ART) effort, which has worked to develop effective and equitable adaptation solutions that integrate adaptation planning into local and regional planning efforts. With adaptation planning efforts underway on community or project specific levels throughout the county, significant work will need to continue as these efforts progress. Additionally, California Government Code Section 65302(g)(4), requires that cities and counties update their General Plan Safety Elements to address climate adaptation and resiliency strategies across the full breadth of hazard and safety issues associated with climate change, not just sea level rise. The City of Larkspur is in the process of completing its updated General Plan, which will include these considerations. The City's comments reflect only its assessment of its efforts and declines to comment on the sufficiency of the efforts of other Marin agencies.

There are insufficient staff and financial resources devoted to climate change adaptation efforts across county government as well as in the cities, towns, and other agencies, and many of the existing efforts are highly dependent on grant funding. Response: Agree. The City agrees to the extent that its own ability to direct staff and financial resources to climate change adaptation efforts are constrained and highly dependent on grant funding. The City will not comment on the specific staffing, financial resources, or grant funding at other agencies.

Cross-jurisdictional collaboration and coordination will be required for successful adaptation efforts, but Marin lacks any overarching organizational or governance structure to facilitate this. Response: Partially disagree. The City agrees that cross-jurisdictional collaboration and coordination is required for successful adaptation — and collaboration is already part of current adaptation efforts. Whether successful adaptation can only be facilitated (or even best facilitated) by an overarching organizational or governance structure assumes that a new structure would necessarily yield better outcomes than investing additional resources into existing cross-jurisdictional collaborative efforts. This includes BayWAVE, C-SMART, the Multi- Jurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, and the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority. This assertion is highly dependent on the level of participation of each jurisdiction, the mission and structure of the organization.