Golden Gate Is Taking Action on Climate Change

Golden Gate National Recreation Area works to be part of the solution to climate change and helps visitors do the same. Our Climate Action Plan lays out GGNRA’s goals to take immediate, ambitious, and durable actions to address climate change.

Our four main strategies include:

1. Reduce our carbon footprint by phasing out fossil fuels
2. Educate staff and visitors
3. Adapt to the impacts of climate change
4. Inspire and Lead in the community and the National Park Service

For a short overview of the contents of the Climate Action Plan, please see this video narrated by the park superintendent.

 

Two electric heat pumps serve an intern dorm at Fort Cronkhite in the Marin Headlands. The electricity comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar. A propane tank that was used to heat the building will be removed in the future.

National Park Service

Strategy 1: Reduce

Reduce fossil fuel emissions and conserve energy and water, achieving carbon-neutral park operations by 2025

The first strategy includes GGNRA’s goals for reducing fossil fuel emissions from park operations and visitation. Actions in this category focus on the sectors that contribute the most to our carbon footprint: Energy, Transportation, and Waste. These types of actions are often referred to as climate mitigation actions.

Taken together, these actions contribute to GGNRA’s goal of achieving carbon neutral park operations, starting in 2025. This will be accomplished by reducing the park’s direct greenhouse gas emissions and purchasing carbon offsets for the remainder of emissions.

Goals in this strategy include:

• Achieve carbon neutral park operations by 2025 through fossil fuel reductions and offsets
• Achieve net-zero energy use for park buildings
• Reduce transportation emissions from NPS vehicles, visitors, and employees
• Increase waste diversion through recycling and composting
• Reduce waste and emissions through sustainable purchasing
• Reduce water use to ensure climate resilient operations

Learn more about our park's sustainability programs here.

 

Golden Gate National Recreation Area staff provide interpretive and educational programs and outreach to park visitors, program participants, and to the broader public.

National Park Service

Strategy 2: Educate

Expand climate change education and outreach, modeling the park’s sustainable actions to our staff and visitors

Climate change is a complex issue that the park can help communicate to the public. Combined with the park’s emission reductions, the greatest impact that GGNRA can have on mitigating climate change is through public education. With more than 17 million visitors to the park annually, we have the opportunity to amplify our impact beyond park boundaries by encouraging people to reduce emissions in their own lives.

Climate communications to park staff, visitors, and community members will focus not only on the climate impacts that Golden Gate is expecting but also the actions they can take in their own lives to generate the greatest fossil fuel reductions. By highlighting effective climate solutions in frequent and regular communications, the park can show that concern for the climate is normal, and we are part of a broader community that is taking action.

In this way, we will break the “spiral of silence” that prevents many people from discussing climate impacts and solutions, and which researchers have identified as a key barrier to effective action. Our education and outreach efforts will empower people to talk more comfortably about climate change and expand our impact beyond just our park operations.

 

Park sites such as Stinson Beach are already seeing impacts from extreme weather events. As the planet warms, storms become warmer, wetter, and more damaging. Rising sea levels compound this effect.

National Park Serice

Strategy 3: Adapt

Plan for and adapt to climate change

Climate change is causing increasing impacts to the park’s coastline, creeks, and rivers which in turn affects recreation, resources, and infrastructure. Increases in storm frequency and flooding along with hotter and drier summers put a strain on park operations and resources. Studies show that more extreme climate conditions will continue to increase in the future at Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Following guidance from the NPS publication Planning for a Changing Climate, the park is beginning to look at a range of future scenarios and adaptation strategies park-wide, particularly in our most vulnerable sites. The park evaluates climate vulnerability by assessing a site's exposure, sensitivity, and resilience, focusing on its ability to withstand, adapt to, and recover from impacts. The park will build internal capacity to engage in these adaptation planning processes, and also seek outside scientific and community expertise.

 

GGNRA hopes to continue with initiatives that bring people together and provide inspiration, such as the Sustainability Summit series that has been paused since covid.

National Park Service

Strategy 4: Inspire and Lead

Inspire and motivate parkwide action on climate change

The final strategy aims to increase parkwide action on climate change by integrating climate initiatives into every aspect of park operations, positioning GGNRA as a leader in the community and within the National Park Service.

GGNRA has been an innovator in many areas, including partnerships and community engagement. Its urban location, surrounded by diverse communities and resources, fosters creative problem-solvingThe park's climate change response has also benefited from the pioneering efforts of local communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, such as San Francisco's curbside composting initiative started in 2009 and Marin County's Community Choice Energy Program, launched in 2010. GGNRA has built on these initiatives to achieve numerous accomplishments.

In this Climate Action Plan, we aim to generate momentum for even greater achievements, inspiring further action toward our ambitious carbon reduction goals. This strategy ensures that CAP implementation remains a top priority and that climate actions are fully integrated into park operations.

 

Reading our sustainability newsletters is the best way to stay up-to-date with climate change action happening in the park.

Learn more

Sustainability is important to us. Learn more by diving into our Sustainability Newsletters.