Climate plan won’t work

Regarding “State releases climate plan” (Bay Area & Business, May 11): Kudos to the California government for doing what federal government should do, providing a specific roadmap to get to carbon neutrality. Too bad ending oil and gas drilling in our state by 2045 is too late.

The World Meteorological Organization, as reported this week, predicts about a 50% chance that the danger mark of global temperatures reaching 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels will be reached at least once in the next five years, decades before California’s 2045 goal. A prolonged 2.7 degree temperature rise is one that will cause rising sea levels, increased flooding, more wildfires, and prolonged droughts, catastrophically impacting both human and environmental health. A goal of carbon neutrality by 2035 has a far better chance of avoiding climate disaster.

Too bad California’s proposed actions are too little. The plan calls for trimming back the existing gas infrastructure. What needs to happen is retrofitting of all existing infrastructure to use renewable electricity, a feasible goal if the political will exists. Merely doubling the acreage of organic farming is hardly pushing the bar; why not aim for 10 times as much?

Illana Weisman, Walnut Creek