California’s New Climate Plan
“What can we do about the climate crisis?” is a regular refrain here; let’s see what the state of California is proposing to do now.
The California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) newly-released 2022 Draft Scoping Plan Update is a big deal. Its Executive Summary begins (emphasis added):
The 2022 Scoping Plan, once final, will be a major milestone, laying out how the fifth largest economy in the world can get to carbon neutrality by 2045 or earlier.
By law (SB 32), California must reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, and by previous Governor Jerry Brown’s executive order, achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, as illustrated in the chart above. The Scoping Plan is to show how, with actions focused by the various GHG emissions sectors:
California’s electricity is cleaner than the U.S. average but we drive a lot. Transportation is 40% of the total (72% from passenger vehicles and 20% from heavy-duty vehicles) and fully half the total if you include oil production and refining.
The substance of the Scoping Plan begins in Table 2–2 on page 58 (PDF page 85), with more discussion beginning on page 147 (PDF page 174); here are some of the biggies from Table 2–2:
Smart Growth / Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT) — VMT per capita reduced 12% below 2019 levels by 2030 and 22% below 2019 levels by 2045
Light duty vehicle (LDV) Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) — 100% of LDV sales are ZEV by 2035*
Truck ZEVs — 100% of medium duty (MD)/HDV sales are ZEV by 2040
Oil & Gas Extraction — Phase out operations by 2045
Electricity Generation — Sector GHG target of 38 MMTCO2e in 2030 and 30 in 2045 [it was 58.5 in 2019]
New Residential and Commercial Buildings — All electric appliances beginning 2026 (residential) and 2029 (commercial)
Stone, Clay, Glass & Cement — CCS on 40% of operations by 2035 and on all facilities by 2045
*Based on CARB’s concurrent Advanced Clean Cars II rulemaking, which will require 35% zero-emissions cars (battery-electric, fuel cell, and plug-in hybrids) in model year 2026, growing to 100% in 2035. Along this path, California sold 12.4% in 2021 (source), mostly Teslas.
This is a big plan, but is it enough? Can VMT actually be reduced? Let’s discuss here, and you can submit formal public comments through June 24.
Sierra Club California expressed initial concerns, especially that the plan would continue to build new gas-fired electric power plants and relies excessively on questionable carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and direct air capture (DAC) technologies:
Although CARB staff seem to recognize the urgency of the climate crisis in their presentations to the Board each month, the draft scoping plan does not have that same sense of urgency. Especially concerning is the plan’s reliance on technologies that haven’t been proven to provide the climate and health benefits Californians need.
This is my first post on Climate Conscious; please also see my earlier 4-part Medium series Solutions to the Climate Crisis beginning here:
