Encinitas has long been a leader in climate action.
Its 2018 Climate Action Plan (CAP) won statewide and national awards, and its implementation was highlighted as a model for other cities. Yet CAP’s scheduled 2023 update is years overdue, hampering many initiatives.
The delay isn’t normal bureaucracy; it’s active obstruction at the City Council. The city is poised to go from climate leader to climate laughingstock.
Disinformation is the intentional spread of misleading information. Lately, there has been a lot of it at Encinitas City Council meetings. As someone who researches disinformation, what caught my attention was an odd claim repeated in public comments: that climate change benefits us.
That is a telltale sign of the CO2 Coalition. The group points to the benefits of increased CO2 for some plants while ignoring the costs of climate change, such as flooding and extreme heat. Needless to say, this is radically at odds with the scientific consensus. Climate scientist Andrew Dessler says it’s “like telling a drowning person they need water to survive” (The Washington Post, 2023).
The CO2 Coalition’s argument stems from a coal industry-funded public relations campaign in the 1990s that later migrated to the CO2 Coalition, which is funded by industry-aligned groups eager to undermine climate action. Michael Mann dubs them “shills, promoting untruthful or misleading claims” (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2024). Not long ago, they were tossed out of a national teachers’ convention for distributing a comic book packed with lies aimed at children.
I was not surprised to find that one of the local voices calling to scrap CAP is a member of the CO2 Coalition. What shocked me, however, was learning that Mayor Bruce Ehlers tried to install this vocal climate crisis denialist on our Environmental Commission on Feb. 11.
According to Ehlers, the CO2 Coalition would bring “balance” to the Environmental Commission, a claim Councilmember Luke Shaffer endorsed. Fortunately, the denialist lost in a vote, but why was the mayor trying to propose someone so anti-science in the first place?
I think it sheds light on CAP’s fate. The CO2 Coalition is not the only one ignoring the costs of climate change. The CAP update was ready for approval in early 2025. Yet it has repeatedly been delayed. Moreover, the council has authorized additional spending on a “cost analysis” by consultant EPIC, with the cost ballooning to $280,942.
EPIC is charged with determining only the direct financial costs of CAP measures — and nothing else. It doesn’t consider indirect benefits or avoided harms. The analysis contains many useful facts, but it has only marginal value for policymaking.
Imagine a “cost analysis” that didn’t consider the benefits of removing toxins from our drinking water! For policy, one needs to consider the value of dunes protecting us from flooding and better transportation helping tourism.
Like the CO2 Coalition, the council majority wants to look at only one side of the ledger. But a standard cost-benefit analysis would show that the benefits of CAP’s measures easily eclipse the costs.
The proposed new measures in the CAP update total only $52,000 per year. This one-sided report alone would have paid for a few years of implementation. What’s also suspicious is that there is no pressing need for the cost analysis. CAP is only a roadmap.
After hearing CO2 Coalition talking points during public comments on Aug. 11, no one on the council would second Councilmember Joy Lyndes’ motion to approve CAP.
Facing pressure in the other direction from Surfrider, the Sierra Club and most speakers on Sept. 23, the council said it would endorse CAP, even as Councilmember Shaffer seemed skeptical of the scientific evidence of climate change.
Yet the delay continues, as Mayor Ehlers insisted on adding two measures to the report, which will cost more money and further delay CAP adoption, thereby handcuffing talented city staff from moving forward.
Why would a majority on the council waste so much money and delay CAP’s update for years? Sometimes the simplest explanation is the true one: Many on the council don’t believe there is a climate crisis.
Craig Callender is the Tata Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at UC San Diego. He is president of the Philosophy of Science Association and serves on the Nature Collective board.
