350 BAY AREA

Through education, mobilizing people-power in the streets, and policy advocacy we insist that Bay Area governments transition to a more just and fossil-free “Green New Deal” to protect community health and our climate with clean and safe air, energy and transportation.

To that end our intention is:
- To encourage all nine counties and 101 cities in the Bay Area to declare climate emergencies, set zero carbon targets and work together to achieve them.
- To force the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to implement groundbreaking regulations on all sources of dangerous air pollutants, especially Particulate Matter (PM), which threatens the health of impacted communities.
- To stop all new fossil fuel infrastructure investments and push for a managed decline of fossil fuel production in California.
- To defend incentives for rooftop solar and protect Community Choice Energy from attacks by the investor-owned utilities.
- To establish policies that allow communities to build and control their own microgrids where they are needed most.
- To push the California Public Utilities Commission for a speedy transition from Natural Gas to renewables as a source of power generation.
- To force banks and insurance companies to stop financing or insuring all new fossil fuel projects or expansions.
- To eliminate fossil fuels from all public and private transportation systems.

We and our six county-level 350 groups are building a movement to force local, regional and state governments and agencies to rapidly reduce GHG emissions to meet California’s zero carbon targets by 2045, or sooner. We join with our allies to put justice at the center as we fight for a foundation adequate to address the climate crisis: without racial, environmental, social, economic and climate justice, our systems will not support the change required.

Our ultimate vision is that all who live in the Bay Area and beyond equitably share clean air, water and soil in a safe, healthy, thriving and stable post-carbon future.

We pursue our goals in all our communications and in the work of the following programs:

Our CLIMATE EMERGENCY PROGRAM helps lead a Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force to bring together city and county officials and their staff with climate, environmental justice, labor, and faith activists at a series of five virtual summits in 2020 to spark ongoing collaboration throughout the Bay Area and speed the spread of best practice emissions cutting actions, like eliminating natural gas from new construction.

Our CLEAN AIR PROGRAM meets regularly with senior Air District staff on rule development for Particulate Matter (PM) emissions from refineries and other sources. We organize volunteers to speak at crucial board meetings and build community support as co-leaders of a network of frontline and environmental justice groups, which meets regularly to plan strategies for engaging with staff and board members. We combine direct engagement with policy makers with community organizing to directly influence policy choices.

Our CLEAN ENERGY PROGRAM influences policy decisions by monitoring and providing expert input on energy policy at the California Public Utilities Commission promoting an Advanced Community Energy model that will restructure the way energy is provided to Californians. We also educate legislators and their staff on climate and energy related bills.

Our FOSSIL FUEL RESISTANCE PROGRAM organizes with local frontline community groups to stop refinery expansions and local drilling by engaging with allies to support local turnout at agency meetings, sourcing and providing expertise on land use, permitting processes, and California Environmental Quality Act rules. We actively support an initiative to begin decommissioning oil refineries. Our mobilization team and local 350 groups partner with national groups to pressure banks, insurance companies and the public to divest from fossil fuels.

Our CLEAN & JUST TRANSPORTATION PROGRAM supports legislative efforts for electrification of transportation, enhanced transit, safe streets, and smart density at the city and state level. We partner with many cities to host EV 101 classes. We also organize discounted group purchases of EVs and demonstrate at auto shows in support of automakers who have agreed to abide by California’s clean air standards.

Our SPEAKER’S BUREAU presents information about the climate crisis, its justice implications and the solutions we are advocating to other organizations and social groups, spreading the word about the nature and immediacy of the emergency, and about solutions that people can help bring about.

Our COMMUNICATIONS TEAM sends frequent newsletters and action alerts to inspire, educate and inform our network of over 17,000 contacts, motivating them to get involved and take action.

ORGANIZATION
Since 2012, We have quickly grown to become a hub for climate justice action serving the nine-county Bay Area, with 17,000 contacts and a staff of four. We have a strong board of directors, five active emission reduction programs, a mobilization task force and a speaker’s bureau to inform the public.

COORDINATION
We support and work together with our local groups (350 San Francisco, 350 Marin, 350 Sonoma, 350 East Bay, 350 Contra Costa and Napa Climate Now), each of which have their own leadership and programs. Our Fossil Fuel Resistance program is strongly allied with Sunflower Alliance, which is an outgrowth of our organization, with long political experience in the East Bay refinery corridor. We accomplish our work with a network of allies, and participate in many other coalitions that include local and national climate, youth, labor and environmental justice organizations.

VOLUNTEERS
We have hundreds of volunteer leaders, managers and activists who do 80% of all the work of our organization. Many are retired professionals with years of technical background experience and expertise in the fields in which we operate.

FUNDRAISING
Our fund development team of nine is growing steadily along with our fundraising capability and budget. Our primary source of funding is the hundreds of reliable community supporters who value the work we do in their communities.

MOBILIZATIONS
We have organized or helped lead many major demonstrations for climate justice action with thousands of participants in the East Bay, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and in local communities around the Bay. We recently hired a Youth Climate Organizer to coordinate and grow our mobilization team and engage more diverse activists of all ages. Our recent Stop the Money Pipeline actions have been directed at banks that fund fossil fuel expansions. We have also joined actions in support of black lives.

INSPIRING & COMPETENT ADVOCACY
We are the dominant community stakeholder in policy advocacy at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which oversees the region’s polluters, turning out more speakers to board and committee meetings than any other groups that attend from communities around the region. Our deep, strategic collaboration with both the Air District board and staff has widened and deepened the agency’s climate program.

Following years of highly technical and effective testimony before the California Public Utilities Commission we are one of the only grassroots organizations that has been granted legal “party” standing in several rule-making processes as community advocates.

Here are some examples of successes of our policy and advocacy campaigns:

FIRST REGIONAL DECARBONIZATION PROGRAM IN THE US, APRIL 2017.
Five years of our advocacy at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District resulted in the development and adoption of an innovative, multi-sectoral Regional Climate Protection Strategy. “Spare the Air, Cool the Climate,” set forth a vision of a fossil-free Bay Area by 2050 and put the region on a path to get there, with a raft of measures to lower greenhouse gases and reduce community health impacts from pollution.

DEFEATED UTILITY OPPOSITION & WON CITYWIDE CLEAN ENERGY, JUNE 2019.
Years of our focused advocacy in San Francisco government undermined long-standing political and industry opposition and drove the launch and full implementation of CleanPowerSF, the city’s Community Choice Energy program, which now serves cleaner energy than PG&E to over 400,000 customers for the same or lower price, while investing in new renewable energy resources.

DEFENDED ROOFTOP SOLAR FROM UTILITY ATTACKS, 2017
Our testimony at the Public Utilities Commission effectively stopped a PG&E proposal that would have severely limited rooftop solar.

FIRST US CITY TO BAN NATURAL GAS IN NEW BUILDINGS, JULY 2019.
Two of 350 Bay Area’s leaders were appointed to the Berkeley Energy Commission and developed a policy adopted by the city to ban new natural gas hookups, the first city in the country to do so. This achievement closely followed Berkeley’s Climate Emergency Resolution, the first in the State, lobbied for by 350 East Bay. Both initiatives are now being adopted by other Bay Area cities, with the help of our local groups.

CLOSING DOWN OIL WELLS, JULY 2019
Our research uncovered San Francisco’s ownership of land in Kern County leased for fossil fuel extraction. We worked with the city to ban this land use and set the leases for cancellation. The first parcels have now been sold off. As leases expire, eighty two producing oil wells will be shut down permanently.

LAUNCHED FOSSIL FREE CALIFORNIA IN 2016
Our Fossil Fuel Divestment program expanded to become an independent state-wide group focused on getting the nation’s largest retirement funds CalSTRS and CalPERS to end investments in fossil fuels.

LAUNCHED YOUTH VS. APOCALYPSE, JANUARY 2020
Our youth program developed over four years, attracted widespread national press attention as leaders of local climate action for global events. In 2019 YVA led 2,000 young people in the largest youth march and rally in Bay Area history, then led over 20,000 participants in the San Francisco Climate Strike. Their successes led to the group being launched as an independent organization.

WHAT’S NEXT
Our recently hired Youth Climate Organizer has begun work to extend our mobilizing capacity and to bring more diversity and young adults into our mobilization and program teams. We look forward to getting back in the streets as the pandemic subsides.