Climate change goals expand
Governor’s order puts emissions cuts on more ambitious track
LOS ANGELES — Gov. Jerry Brown ramped up his efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, issuing an executive order Wednesday morning with more ambitious targets for California.
The governor’s order aims to cut emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Previous goals, which were set during former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration, were to reach 1990 levels by 2020, then 80 percent below that standard by 2050.
“I’ve set a very high bar, but it’s a bar we must meet,” Brown told a crowd of hundreds at a climate change conference in Los Angeles. “It’s a bar not only for California, but it’s a goal for other states, for the United States as a whole
and for other nations around the world.”
The governor, who received a standing ovation, urged politicians to keep battling climate change even though the issue can seem “a bit remote and abstract.” And he blasted Republicans in Congress who have doubted whether the threat is real, including one who brought a snowball to the floor of the U. S. Senate to argue the world isn’t getting warmer.
“That kind of magical thinking leads to disaster,” Brown said. “If the federal government, in the legislative branch, can’t get it right, then we in California are going to do our part to take care of business here.”
Brown said he hopes California’s actions “stimulate some intelligent response over there on the other side of the Potomac” in Washington. In his executive order, the governor detailed a litany of dangers posed by climate change, including “loss of snowpack, drought, sea level rise, more frequent and intense wildfires, heat waves, more severe smog and harm to natural and working lands.”
His executive order aligns California’s goals with those set by the European Union and is intended to keep the state on track to meeting its 2050 target.
“California’s announcement is a realization and a determination that will gladly resonate with other inspiring actions within the United States and around the globe,” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in a statement.
The United Nations has scheduled a major international summit on the issue for later this year in Paris.
Requirements stemming from California’s landmark global warming law passed in 2006 have led to higher energy bills for residents and businesses, said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable and a member of Californians for Affordable and Reliable Energy.
Lapsley said he supports Brown’s goal but thinks other states must be included.
“We can’t afford to be out there by ourselves. That’s going to hurt our economy,” he said.
More work on climate change is being done by lawmakers in California’s Capitol. Legislation under consideration — first suggested by Brown in his inaugural address in January — would increase the use of renewable energy, boost energy efficiency in outdated buildings and reduce gasoline use on state roads.
All of those proposals are intended to help California curb greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent under 1990 levels by 2050, a target originally set through executive order by Schwarzenegger.
State Sen. Fran Pavley has already authored legislation, SB 32, to codify the 2050 target. On Wednesday morning, the Calabasas Democrat said the bill would be modified to incorporate Brown’s new executive order. “It fits perfectly,” she said. “It’s consistent with all the goals.”
Putting the executive order into law, she said, would help it “stand the test of time from one administration to the next.”
Business and consumer groups expressed concern about the impact to lowincome communities and companies.
“Prior to moving forward with new, aggressive goals, California elected officials must provide the tools that manufacturers and other sectors need to reduce emissions and stay competitive in a global economy,” Dorothy Rothrock, president of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association, said in a statement.
State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, who has been pushing climate change legislation, also praised Brown’s announcement.
“Today’s executive order from Gov. Brown sets new carbon reduction goals that exemplify California’s global leadership on climate change,” he said in a statement. “As with our state’s landmark cap- and- trade system, the Legislature will now create the framework to reach these goals.”