Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance

The Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance (NCSA) http://ncsa.nationbuilder.com/
advances sustainability and resilience across Los Angeles through advocacy, sharing of best practices,
and community action.

The NCSA holds regular public forums and events, and collaborates with Neighborhood Councils,
public agencies, nonprofits, and other organizations to support effective engagement on LA’s
Sustainable City pLAn, drought response, climate action, and other timely sustainability issues.

The NCSA board is composed of stakeholders from Neighborhood Councils across the City of Los Angeles. 

The NCSA is affiliated with Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a non-profit public charity exempt from federal income tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. 

We invite your involvement!

Please direct inquiries to: NCSA@empowerla.org. 

WHY RENEWABLE ENERGY?

 Climate Protection—We are running out of time to protect our climate. Staying below 1.5°C of warming,

and well below a catastrophic 2°C of warming, will require aggressive action to undo our dependence on

fossil fuels.

 Air Quality—We need to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to clean up the air in the Los Angeles basin,

which despite improvements in recent decades, still consistently fails to reach federal air quality

standards and remains a major public health threat. More than 1.6 million people in Los Angeles suffer

from asthma, many of them children. LADWP’s adoption of a 100% renewable electricity portfolio that

includes the most advanced air quality protection technologies and minimizes any type of in-basin

combustion will be a critical step toward remedying this persistent problem.

 Fresh Water—Fresh-water supply constraints represent a serious threat in Los Angeles, which stands to

get more severe with climate change and population growth. Non-coastal fossil-fuel and nuclear power

use approximately 40% of fresh water in the United States. Renewable energy technologies like wind and

solar, by contrast, use little water. Therefore, eliminating fossil and nuclear power production is a critical

part of a sustainable water strategy for Los Angeles.

 Flexibility and Reliability—Renewable electricity technologies are more flexible than fossil fuel power and

can therefore better ensure a reliable energy supply in the Los Angeles region, which is prone to

earthquakes and other disasters. Investigators at Stanford University tested a new grid integration model

and found that renewable energy can ensure reliable power for most locations worldwide

http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CombiningRenew/CONUSGridIntegration.pdf.

 Local Jobs Creation—Transitioning to a 100% renewable power supply will also increase the City’s

potential to create more local jobs. Investments in clean, renewable energy create more jobs than the

same investments in coal, oil and gas.

 Costs—The Solutions Project at Stanford University estimates that reaching 100% renewable energy in

2050 would pay for itself in three years through air pollution and climate cost savings alone. They

estimate $127.9 billion in avoided health care costs, 12,528 avoided air pollution deaths per year, and

$161 annual energy cost savings per person http://thesolutionsproject.org/infographic/#ca. The DWP

hasn’t modeled the 100% renewable energy, so we can’t know the cost, but we do know from a couple

scenarios they have investigated that increased costs, if any, might average $5/month per household.

 Demonstrating Leadership—Finally, most other large cities in California have already adopted 100%

renewable electricity targets, including San Diego, which is targeting 2035, and San Francisco, which aims

to get there by 2030. They are joined by hundreds of other cities across the nation and the world with

similar or even more ambitious commitments. By pursuing 100% renewable electricity by 2030, Los

Angeles can assure its position as a national and international frontrunner in advancing clean energy.