For first time in six years, California’s greenhouse gas emissions rose.
California’s greenhouse gas emissions rose slightly in 2018, a worrying sign for a state committed to ambitiously slashing climatewarming emissions in the coming decades.
Emissions rose from 424.5 to 425.3 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent between 2017 and 2018, according to numbers released Monday by the state’s Air Resources Board, which regulates air pollution. This is the first time in six years that California’s emissions have risen.
Data is generally reported with a twoyear lag, so 2018 represents the most recent numbers.
“I don’t think it rises to the level of alarm,” Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, said of the yearoveryear increase. “It’s a relatively small amount in the big picture of emissions.”
Phillips said despite the uptick, the state still remained below its 2020 target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
“2018 still remains below the 2020 target and in that sense is still in a good range,” Phillips said.
The state’s emissions for 2018 were 6 million metric tons below the 2020 target, according to the Air Resources Board.
California has already met and passed its 2020 goal of cutting greenhouse gas levels to 1990 levels — 431 million metric tons.
But the state aims to cut emissions much further — another 40% by 2030 — which will require steep drops, not increases. Still deeper cuts are planned for the years and decades beyond 2030.
Emissions from transportation, which has been the most stubborn sector to squeeze reductions from, fell slightly. But emissions from the electric power sector, which has accounted for an impressive chunk of California’s reductions in the past, rose slightly.
Transportation emissions declined 1.5 million metric tons between 2017 and 2018, the first such decline since 2013.
Per capita greenhouse emissions statewide have dropped from a high of 14 tons per person in 2001 to 10.7 tons per person in 2018 according to the Air Resources Board, a drop of 24%.
As the Trump administration has sought to unwind fuel efficiency standards, California has also sought to work directly with automakers, striking a deal last year with Ford, Honda,
BMW of North America and Volkswagen Group of America to increase their fuel efficiency standards.
In May a group of states led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued the Trump administration over its efforts to roll back fuel efficiency standards for cars.
In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order mandating that all new passenger vehicles produce no emissions by 2035.
Phillips of Sierra Club California pointed to other areas where emissions could be decreased, including phasing out natural gas as a source of heating in new buildings.
On Monday, Becerra and the Air Resources Board joined a coalition of 12 attorneys general in urging the federal Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen standards regulating the greenhouse gases emitted from airplanes, along with other types of aircraft.
The pandemic is generally believed to have reduced emissions for 2020, since many people are staying home and not driving, but official state figures will not be available for a few years.
” I think it’s too early to tell what effect over the long term 2020 has had,” Phillips said.
Phillips noted that the immediate reduction in transportation emissions during shelterinplace was swiftly followed by a dramatic shift to home delivery, which may have offset those benefits.
“While emissions have slowed in 2020 due to COVID, we know the pandemic will eventually end and the economy will recover,” said Peter Miller, a Western regional director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in an email.
“More needs to be done in making clean transportation investments, protecting communities from fossil fuel operations, and engaging additional programs that will lead to more jobs, healthier air, and ultimately help protect our climate,” he added.
The state’s tally does not include climatewarming emissions from wildfires, which have grown dramatically in scope in recent years. The Camp Fire, the deadliest blaze in state history, killing 85 people in Butte County, occurred in 2018.
The impact of wildfires on greenhouse gas emissions is harder to assess: Some fires can rejuvenate the landscape and lead to more carbon being trapped than emitted, according to Nic Enstice, regional scientist at the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, a state agency charged with protecting the ecological and economic health of the Sierra region.
“Understanding what dynamics are manmade and which are natural is a challenge as opposed to emissions from automobiles, which is clear.” Enstice said.
Assessing carbon emissions from wildfires can take decades, he added. The majority of carbon after a fire typically stays behind in the form of dead trees whose fate over the years determines the effect of the blaze.
Wildfire emissions can also be made worse by human activity, Enstice said.
He pointed to one study that found lead from previously burned gasoline leached into trees, only to be spewed back into the air when those trees burned.
“Even old emissions come back to haunt us,” Enstice said.