NEWS An Earth Day message for California: Move faster on climate change

imageLos Ange­les Times

by Sam­my Roth

For the orig­i­nal, click here.

If there’s one thing to under­stand this Earth Day about California’s role in con­fronting the cli­mate cri­sis, it’s this: Just because the state con­sid­ers itself a glob­al leader doesn’t mean it’s doing near­ly enough.

Gov. Gavin New­som admit­ted as much last year. As mon­strous wild­fires carved a path of destruc­tion from the giant sequoias of the Sier­ra Neva­da to the moun­tains around Los Ange­les — bring­ing smoke-choked orange skies to the Bay Area and rain­ing ash to South­ern Cal­i­for­nia — New­som said, “Across the entire spec­trum, our goals are inad­e­quate to the real­i­ty we’re experiencing.”

We’re going to have to do more, and we’re going to have to fast-track our efforts,” New­som told reporters as he stood among fresh­ly charred trees in Oroville. “While it’s nice to have goals to get to 100% clean ener­gy by 2045, that’s inadequate.”

Now lead­ing sci­en­tists are offer­ing the gov­er­nor a far more aggres­sive path forward.

That path is laid out in a not-yet-pub­lished paper (avail­able on arX­iv) from a team of researchers led by UC Berkeley’s Daniel Kam­men, whose work for an inter­na­tion­al cli­mate sci­ence pan­el helped earn a Nobel Peace Prize. The researchers make the case that Cal­i­for­nia must ratch­et up its ambi­tions dra­mat­i­cal­ly, and immediately.

The sci­en­tists call for the state to reduce its plan­et-warm­ing pol­lu­tion near­ly 80% by 2030, rather than the cur­rent­ly man­dat­ed 40%, through what they describe as a “a wartime-like mobi­liza­tion of resources.”

Why should the Gold­en State dou­ble its efforts?

The paper rat­tles off a dizzy­ing series of facts about the cli­mate con­se­quences already con­fronting Cal­i­for­ni­ans: 4.3 mil­lion acres burned in 2020, about 4% of the state; near­ly $150 bil­lion in health and eco­nom­ic dam­ages from small­er firestorms two years ear­li­er; and con­fla­gra­tions so bad experts didn’t expect to see them for anoth­er 30 years. Not to men­tion wors­en­ing droughts, ris­ing seas and hot­ter heat storms that are far dead­lier than many peo­ple real­ize.

And despite the state’s long track record of lead­er­ship in phas­ing out fos­sil fuels, it’s now falling behind, the researchers say.

There’s no bet­ter sign of that than Pres­i­dent Biden — once viewed with extreme skep­ti­cism by cli­mate activists — try­ing to pass an infra­struc­ture bill that sets a nation­al goal of 100% clean elec­tric­i­ty by 2035, a full decade ahead of California’s target.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti delivers his annual State of the City address from Griffith Observatory on April 19, 2021.
Los Ange­les May­or Eric Garcetti deliv­ers his annu­al State of the City address from Grif­fith Obser­va­to­ry on April 19, 2021.

Los Ange­les May­or Eric Garcetti endorsed the same 2035 goal in his State of the City address on Mon­day. That fol­lowed the release of a first-of-its-kind study by the fed­er­al­ly fund­ed Nation­al Renew­able Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry find­ing L.A. can achieve 98% clean ener­gy as ear­ly as 2030, and 100% by 2035, with­out increas­ing the risk of black­outs or dis­rupt­ing the local economy.

Garcetti said in an inter­view that New­som and the state Leg­is­la­ture should “absolute­ly” fol­low L.A.‘s lead.

This should encour­age Cal­i­for­nia to see that it’s achiev­able every­where. If the biggest city in the state with the largest munic­i­pal util­i­ty in the coun­try can do this, you can do it too,” Garcetti said.

The rea­son why is obvi­ous. This whole world, gov­ern­ments are miss­ing their goals. Weath­er events are becom­ing more extreme, and the threat is greater today than it was yes­ter­day,” he said.

There are oth­er exam­ples over­seas of gov­ern­ments pick­ing up the pace.

The Unit­ed King­dom plans to ban the sale of gas cars by 2030, half a decade ahead of Newsom’s dead­line for Cal­i­for­nia. British Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son recent­ly set a tar­get of slash­ing car­bon emis­sions 68% by 2030, far more aggres­sive than California’s aim. Vol­vo says it will pro­duce only elec­tric vehi­cles by 2030. Fin­land is aim­ing for a car­bon-neu­tral econ­o­my by 2035, 10 years ahead of California.

Law­mak­ers in Wash­ing­ton state also vault­ed ahead of Cal­i­for­nia last week, set­ting a goal to end the sale of gas cars by 2030.

There’s a lot going on that we’re not tak­ing advan­tage of,” Kam­men said in an interview.

Kam­men has pre­vi­ous­ly served as a Coor­di­nat­ing Lead Author for the Unit­ed Nations-backed Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change. His coau­thors on the new paper include UC Merced cog­ni­tive sci­en­tist Tee­nie Mat­lock; USC soci­ol­o­gist Manuel Pas­tor; UC San­ta Bar­bara soci­ol­o­gist David Pel­low, UC San Diego cli­mate sci­en­tist Veer­ab­had­ran Ramanathan; UC San­ta Bar­bara polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Leah Stokes; and Tom Stey­er, the bil­lion­aire cli­mate activist who ran for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion last year.

The group used a mod­el­ing tool devel­oped by the Cli­mate Cen­ter, a San­ta Rosa-based non­prof­it, to ana­lyze how much the Gold­en State could cut emis­sions over the next nine years with­out caus­ing ener­gy costs to rise sig­nif­i­cant­ly. They deter­mined a reduc­tion of 77% below 1990 lev­els was fea­si­ble, large­ly because solar pan­els, wind tur­bines and bat­ter­ies are get­ting so cheap.

We didn’t work back from a tar­get. We worked for­ward from what are the cur­rent price declines we’re see­ing on the renew­able and stor­age side,” Kam­men said in an inter­view. “The 80% comes in at a sweet spot, where the prices don’t rise that much.”

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm in the Tehachapi Mountains of Kern County.
The Los Ange­les Depart­ment of Water and Power’s Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm in the Tehachapi Moun­tains of Kern County.

What would those changes look like in practice?

Under one path­way laid out in the paper, which is being reviewed by the jour­nal Envi­ron­men­tal Research Let­ters, Cal­i­for­nia would need to reach 100% clean elec­tric­i­ty by 2030. That would require build­ing new infra­struc­ture — includ­ing lots of off­shore wind tur­bines — at a pace Kam­men described as “a bit scary.” Emis­sions from trans­porta­tion, the largest source of cli­mate pol­lu­tion, would need to fall by 70% in nine years, almost cer­tain­ly neces­si­tat­ing an end to the sale of gas cars some­time this decade.

It’s real­ly designed to be a wake-up call,” Kam­men said.

There’s lit­tle ques­tion a wake-up call is needed.

The Nation­al Ocean­ic and Atmos­pher­ic Admin­is­tra­tion report­ed this month that con­cen­tra­tions of car­bon diox­ide and methane, the two most impor­tant green­house gas­es, reached record lev­els in 2020, ris­ing rapid­ly despite a pan­dem­ic that slowed the glob­al econ­o­my. The plan­et is already 1.2 degrees Cel­sius warmer than it was before the Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion, near­ing the 1.5 degrees that sci­en­tists have set as a tar­get for staving off dan­ger­ous tip­ping points.

 

 

 

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