On Tuesday, the City Council of my hometown, Novato, California, gave Mayor Denise Athas their approval to join the Mayors For 100% Clean Energy initiative. This marked a proud moment for me as the director of the Ready For 100 Campaign and a child of the first parents on my block to install solar panels in the early 80’s.
It’s not just that I can brag to my coworkers on the Ready For 100 campaign, with whom we have a highly competitive “Hometown Challenge” to see whose place of origin will show the loftiest clean energy leadership. Nor is it that Novato is the 153rd community in the country where leaders have drawn a line in the sand to declare that the future will be powered by 100% clean and renewable energy. Though both are cause for celebration.
My excitement really stems from the hopeful reminder that local progress has an outsized impact when it’s your cherished home that will benefit from a clean energy transition. With the Ready For 100 campaign we each have the ability to win significant change in the places that are most important to us. By taking action locally, we get to shape the future of our communities.
Local elected leaders across the country are embracing 100% renewable energy goals and measures to ensure the transition to clean energy addresses the inequities of our current system. They are listening to their residents and taking action to address a range of local concerns — air pollution, high energy costs, the effects of climate change — by adopting bold clean energy solutions.
Watching this national movement hit home in Novato is a reminder that the clean energy revolution is happening town by town, city by city, all across the country, despite the hostility of the federal government.
Novato’s vision will be implemented, in part, through a program that gives local communities the right to choose cleaner energy. Earlier this year the city opted to buy 100% renewable power from Marin Clean Energy, the first Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) program in California. The program’s “Deep Green” option is also a way for Novato residents and businesses to choose 100% clean energy. Throughout California, CCA programs are exceedingly popular because they shift decisions about the sources of energy that power our communities from corporations to the people.
Mayor Athas and the Novato City Council’s decision to endorse this community-wide 100% clean energy vision is the next step in renewable leadership for the city. Novato is the first community in Marin County to join Mayors For 100% Clean Energy. I can’t wait to see whose hometown will be next.
