Green and sustainability news: Calling for action on climate for California

Calling for action on climate for California

Climate change is one of the challenges that the world is facing right now. It is a threat that many governments feel that they cannot sit down and watch while it happens.

To that effect, the California State Assembly joint legislative committee on climate change met earlier last month to discuss the pathway for achieving climate neutrality.

BUT WHAT IS CARBON NEUTRALITY?

Last year, the United Nations issued a warning where it stated that it may be too late to stop the ravaging effects of global warming but amid this hopeless situation, the U.N. said that dramatically reducing the use of the fossils starting in this decade and zeroing it out by the mid-century could avert greater devastation.

California has been at the vanguard of this movement where it has committed to cutting down the greenhouse gas emission by 40% in the next 8 years. In 2018, the then governor, Jerry Brown signed an executive order setting the goal even higher. In the order, the governor set a bolder plan where he proposed the state’s carbon neutrality goals by 2045. This means the state is committed to removing as many greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere as it emits.

So far, the California government has done so much to make its plans good, but much of what needs to be done remains aspirational. While the state is committed to 100% clean energy by 2045, electrical power generation accounts for at least 15% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. If the state is committed to its ambitious plans, then it would have to slash emissions from everything including cars, trucks, heating appliances, farms, and industrial operations.

On March 10, 2022, Ben Grundy, a global warming Solutions Associate, provided testimony at the hearing by the California State Assembly’s joint legislative committee on climate change policies in support of the governor’s investments in Zero-emission vehicles, decarbonization efforts, and clean energy.

“The California legislature must

accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.” Environment California supports Dan Kammen’s call for an accelerated 100% EV timeline to 2030 or earlier, aggressive movement forward on offshore wind, and the continued protection of CA’s rooftop solar industry.

Implementing a solar tax and making rooftop solar more expensive is not the pathway to ensuring access to all. Additionally, limiting or halting investments in ZEV infrastructure will slow down our state’s transition to zero-emission transportation. California has the worst air quality of any state in the country and our transportation sector accounts for over 50% of GHG emissions and produces toxic tailpipe emissions that place our environment and health at risk.

As both the sunshine state and a coastal state, California and the California legislature must take full advantage of solar and offshore wind now.”

If the state was to pursue its rigorous plans, it would mean phasing out the gas and dieselfueled cars and trucks in the favor of zero emission vehicles thus reducing or eliminating the natural gas in both homes and businesses. It would also mean that the state terminates its oil and gas extraction, effectively cutting the methane emissions from oil wells, landfills, and farms. Of course, there are those emissions that cannot be easily eliminated and the state’s solution to such is pursuing technologies that would capture carbon dioxide from industrial facilities that remove the harmful gas and also the existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

At this point, the world must move fast if there is any hope to save the world from the pending climate crisis. No doubt, transitioning the entire economy from fossil fuels to clean energy will be extremely challenging, expensive, and timeconsuming for businesses and residents. But, we don’t have an option because the cost of inactivity is unthinkable. If we don’t accelerate the work right now, it will be impossible to zero out the greenhouse emission by the midcentury.