SEASIDE -- Officials from around the Monterey Bay gathered Wednesday at Cal State Monterey Bay to continue a regional effort at setting a high bar for reducing greenhouses gasses and achieving other environmental goals.

Called the Monterey Bay Regional Climate Compact, the effort drew elected and nonprofit officials and representatives from air quality, transportation and educational sectors in an effort to find common ground on setting climate goals that exceed even the state's relatively high standards.

"If we have a single document and we know what we're managing toward, and we have a common purpose, then we have a pretty good chance of actually getting there," said County Treasurer Fred Keeley, an organizer of the effort. "In the same way that California wasn't going to wait for the federal government to deal with climate change [we] believe we're in position to be even more effective locally."

One way of achieving significant greenhouse gas reduction is moving toward center stage. Advocates say so-called community choice aggregation -- in essence, setting up a local power-buying agency that can deliver renewable energy to area residents -- can be one way to cut down significantly on the region's carbon footprint.

That idea has been expanded beyond Santa Cruz County since it was first proposed, with backers now hoping to include Monterey and San Benito counties. With more available land, and at a lower cost, those two counties open up more possibilities when it comes to building renewable energy projects.

"Forty percent of our greenhouse gas comes from the built environment. It's the No. 1 thing we can do, right now, to (lower) our emissions," said Gine Johnson, a consultant to Santa Cruz County Supervisor Bruce McPherson who has been drumming up support for the idea.

Johnson also said local power would keep those dollars in the region, providing an economic boost to the area. She and other supporters also recently launched a website, MontereyBayCCA.org, and are recruiting the support of more cities, as well as the San Benito County Board of Supervisors.

The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors and all local cities have expressed interest in the idea. Johnson has raised $10,000, toward a goal of $150,000, which would pay for an implementation study she wants to see get under way in the fall.

The event included speakers from numerous local agencies, who detailed work already under way to reduce greenhouse gasses. Representatives from a local nonprofit that trades carbon credits, The Offset Project, were also on hand.

The star speaker was author and noted environmentalist David Orr, a professor at Ohio's Oberlin College. He said climate change is real and that people need to reset their place in the natural world.

"There is no safe place on the planet given the trends that we now know," Orr said, adding that debates about climate change are futile -- the evidence exists, and it is provable.

"We need to get beyond those kinds of arguments," he said.