The Novato City Council has declared a climate emergency and plans to hold community workshops to develop new strategies on how to cut the city’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The emergency declaration, adopted unanimously on Tuesday, is largely symbolic, but the council plans to review more detailed strategies in the coming months.

“At some point, we may need to make this resolution a little bit more specific,” Mayor Pro Tem Pat Eklund said. “But the intent was for us to make a statement that we are in a climate emergency and every city in the state of California and the United States and throughout the entire world should be doing what they can in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Novato’s vote makes it the third municipality in Marin — after Fairfax and San Anselmo — to adopt a climate emergency declaration. Several Bay Area cities, such as Berkeley, Petaluma and San Francisco, have adopted similar resolutions.

Silke Valentine, an activist with the 350 Marin climate group, called for the city to take more time with the resolution and set more aggressive goals, including a target of zero net carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.

“We need to aim for a target that has a chance of stopping the worst parts of the climate change and helps to reverse climate chaos,” Valentine said. “This would force the all hands on deck approach needed to allow more community input.”

The city’s resolution comes shortly after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced new climate initiatives, including banning the sale of new gas-powered passenger vehicles in 2035 and creating of climate action corps.

The Marin County Civil Grand Jury also released a report recently calling for a countywide strategy both to adapt to and reverse the climate change impacts.

In 2009, Novato became the first city in Marin County to adopt a climate action plan, city staff said. Part of the plan included meeting the state greenhouse gas reduction targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15% below 2005 levels 2020 and by 40% by 2035. The latest greenhouse gas inventory showed the city reduced emissions by 24% by the end of 2018.

The city achieved a large portion of the emission reduction by obtaining electricity from “deep-green” 100% renewable sources through Marin Climate Energy, according to city sustainability coordinator Gretchen Schubeck.

All four public speakers at the meeting advocated for the city to incorporate more specific actions into the emergency declaration.

“I hope the next draft of this resolution will include provisions to make it easier to electrify buildings, to make it easier to own electric vehicles,” said Novato resident Kevin Morrison, who has run for City Council on a climate change platform. “We should be on record, like Petaluma is banning new construction of new gas stations. We should be on record, like our state governor banning the sale of new gas-powered cars.”

Novato high school student Wesley Fink told the council that the resolution would be “a powerful statement to our city’s youth that their future matters and that in that future a green Novato will be a part of it.”

Another local high school student, Charlie Hart, called for the city to publish more specific actions on how the city will address its carbon drawdown and climate change efforts.