PLANNING WATCH - If you think that climate change is adversely affecting Los Angeles, you are right. The wildfires are worse; the temperature is rising, and bad air continues to plague us, even if the Trump Administration is in total denial and LA’s City Hall routinely kicks the climate change ball down the road.

To be totally accurate, the Bass mayoral administration has kept a 2019 climate report, LA’s Green New Deal, prepared by the previous mayor, Eric Garcetti. Mayor Bass presents Garcetti’s report as her climate “plan” instead of sending it off to Piper Tech, the City’s repository for old files.

Even though Mayor Bass has NOT yet tossed the Garcetti report down the memory hole, in 2023 the Los Angeles City Council requested that the Department of City Planning scope out a Climate Change Adaptation Plan (CCAP). Once the City Council adopts it, the CCAP would become an element in LA’s legally required General Plan. So far the only response to the Council’s action is a 13 page letter from City Planning. Page 9 of this letter reveals that in Los Angeles real estate deals, always cloaked as “affordable” private sector housing, take priority over climate change realities.

“If the City fails to fully comply with the Climate Change Adaptation Plan (CAAP), for example due to unanticipated funding challenges, it may prove more difficult to make General Plan consistency findings . . . The inclusion of a CAAP in the General Plan also has the potential to complicate or even conflict with ongoing efforts to streamline the review and approval of affordable housing. If such projects were to become challenged over consistency with the General Plan, it can make the already ambitious effort of meeting the City’s state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) goal of 486,000 units more challenging by creating additional compliance requirements.”

This letter’s claim that the production of “affordable” housing would be harmed if the City Council adopted the Climate Change Adaptation Element for the city’s General Plan should not be taken seriously.

While Los Angeles City Hall dithers about a Council-approved Climate Change Adaptation Element, we now know that climate change made January 2025’s wildfires 35 percent more destructive. One conclusion from the Cambridge University study where this percentage is presented states, “. . .dry conditions and the Santa Ana winds that are crucial for the spread of fires, are increasingly overlapping.” The same study concluded that even more destructive wild fires are forecast in the future: “. . . Peak Fire Weather Index (FWI) intensifying by a further 3% and similar values becoming a further 35% more likely if the world warms to 2.6°C, which is the lowest warming expected under current policies by 2100.”

At this point the only climate document that Mayor Bass has (re)posted is the Los Angeles Green New Deal. It is six years old and explains why the City Council requested that the Planning Department prepare a Climate Change Adaptation Element for LA’s General Plan.

Despite climate change denials from both major political parties, California is dramatically experiencing climate change. This official State of California report from 2022: INDICATORS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CALIFORNIA lists most of them:

· Rising seas.

· Wildfires.

· Extremely hot temperatures.

· Droughts.

· Rising Green House Gas emissions.

According to Sammy Roth, the LA Times reporter who covers climate issues, LA’s response is anemic. He wrote, “The city still doesn’t have a plan for reducing planet-warming emissions from residential gas heating and gas stoves.“

In addition to recycling an old climate report from Eric Garcetti, Mayor Bass also wants to pull the plug on the new Climate Emergency Mobilization Office. While the cost savings are minimal, the Mayor is making a bold “Who needs it?” statement in eliminating this small climate office.

If you bet that LA’s City Hall is properly dealing with climate change, get ready to lose your bet.

(Dick Platkin ([email protected]) is a retired LA city planner. He reports on planning issues in Los Angeles and is a board member of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles. Previous columns are available at the CityWatchLA archives.)