It was standing room only on the Berkeley Climate Action Express, a hydrogen-powered bus full of city officials and citizens interested in Berkeley's new Climate Action Plan.

The plan, which was unveiled yesterday near the Shorebird Nature Center in the Berkeley Marina, is part of Measure G-an initiative overwhelmingly passed by Berkeley voters in 2006 to cut greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

But this plan keeps a closer goal in mind-a 33 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

The plan is only an early step because it does not require the city to do anything, but instead provides a list of actions the city could take to help cut emissions.

Over the coming months both residents and city officials will work to develop a more concrete plan. The City Council will hold a workshop on the plan tonight where they will discuss the implementation of the plan.

Making homes and businesses more efficient, increasing public transportation use, and promoting biking and walking are among the methods officials hope to use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"It is a good base step," said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. "But before we accept (the plan), we need to add a great deal more substance."

But Worthington said he believes the plan needs 10 to 15 additions to address other aspects of climate change, including a subsidized bus pass for city employees.

One feature of the plan is an extended payback plan for expensive environmentally friendly purchases such as electric cars and solar panels.

The city says these items are currently too expensive for most residents but will be essential to meeting the emissions reduction goal.

In an effort to help residents pay for these items, Mayor Tom Bates announced a plan last November to allow residents to pay back the cost of solar panels or electric cars on their property tax for 20 years with no up-front cost.

Dan Kammen, director of the UC Berkeley Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, said the use of renewable energy is an essential part of decreasing the city's greenhouse gas emissions.

"The cost of renewable energy is decreasing and the cost of conventional energy is increasing, and they are going to cross," he said. "Berkeley is pushing them to cross sooner."

Some city officials also discussed implementing a tax on energy sources that emit carbon dioxide but said they had not yet decided if a tax was the best way to control carbon dioxide emissions.

Such a tax on carbon dioxide emissions will require the approval of two-thirds of Berkeley voters.

But some said that while the tax could raise money for environmental programs, it could place a financial burden on the poor.

"It provides sustained funding over time to something that takes decades, but it can be regressive, the revenue would have to be invested back into low-income programs," Timothy Burroughs, the city's climate action coordinator, said at the conference.

The plan will be open for public discussion until March 7 and a revised plan will be submitted to the council in April.

Bates believes Berkeley is an ideal location to enact such broad changes.

"The people of Berkeley are people who care about the planet ... they know that business-as-usual is not going to work," he said. "It's just a question of giving them ideas and opportunities and turning them loose."

Tags: CITY OF BERKELEY, MEASURE G, ENVIRONMENT