San Francisco Climate Action Plan2026 plan · progress dashboard

Emissions model · Appendix D

What gets San Francisco to net-zero?

The plan's emission model, prepared by Arup and Cascadia, stacks three layers: what happens with no policy at all, what already-adopted state and regional rules deliver, and what the City's own actions add on top. Switch layers, then adjust the City's action wedges to see what implementation pace means for the 2030 and 2040 targets.

How to read this

What each layer includes

Adjusted Business-as-Usual
BAU plus recently adopted federal, state, and regional policy (Caltrain electrification, CA Clean Cars, Air District rules 9-4 and 9-6, Title 24, All-Electric New Construction, SB 1383).
Business-as-Usual
Current federal and state policy plus anticipated consumer behavior shifts (CEC ZEV adoption, Advanced Clean Trucks, DOE fuel-economy outlook, net-zero SF grid by 2030).
2026 Climate Action Plan
ABAU plus implementation of the City's 2026 Climate Action Plan actions in transportation, buildings, and landfilled organics.
No-Action
No federal, state, regional, or local climate policy and no change in consumer behavior. Population and jobs grow per Plan Bay Area 2050.

Caveats

  • The City's actions are modeled by sector, not one action at a time. A wedge represents the group of strategies listed under it, so "implementation" scales the whole group.
  • Annual values between the model's reported years (2021, 2030, 2040, 2050) are digitized from the memo’s chart and calibrated to its table. Treat single-year readings as approximate; the anchor years are exact.
  • Wedges are scaled independently. The full model has interactions (a cleaner grid changes what electrification is worth), so custom scenarios are indicative, not a re-run of the model.
  • Net-zero by 2040 is defined as a 90% reduction from 1990 with the remainder removed from the atmosphere; see the plan's carbon dioxide removal chapter.
  • Per-resident figures use inventory population through 2024 and Plan Bay Area 2050 projections after that.

Sources: 2026 Climate Action Plan Appendix D (Arup technical memo, April 14, 2026); San Francisco Communitywide Greenhouse Gas Inventory (DataSF); Environment Code Chapter 9.