We have heard that some community members are citing the City’s existing focus on constraining absolute GHG emissions as a reason to oppose redevelopment. We emphatically disagree with this perspective. It represents an overly simplistic view of what the City’s GHG goals should be – a view that until recently CFMV was also guilty of.

After delving more deeply into the issue as a result of our service on the Environmental Sustainability Task Force in 2018, the CFMV Board revised its Mission Statement on Feb. 5.

It previously was “Our goal is for Mountain View’s GHG emissions in 2025 to be 40% lower than they were in 2005.”

We have changed that to “Our goal is for Mountain View’s GHG emissions per service population in 2025 to be 50% lower than they were in 2005.” (Service population is the sum of the number of residents and workers in Mountain View. We estimate that as of 2019 there are 82,000 residents and 98,300 workers for a total service population of 180,300.)

This revised goal is compatible with continued growth in Mountain View’s residential population and employment levels. Importantly, the goal can be more easily achieved if new housing grows faster than new jobs. This will improve the city’s dreadful imbalance between jobs and housing.

Recommendation M2 from the Sustainability Task Force asked the City to make this change and adjust its goals, and we hope that they will do so in the near future.