While Donald Trump was being inaugurated as the 45th president, California was busy unveiling its new strategy to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 from 1990 levels. The move is in stark contrast to Trump's positions on the environment and one that is bound to set off a debate over states rights.
California has long been on the cutting edge of environmental initiatives, having first enacted a law to cut carbon in 2006 — a ruling that has required it to review and reset its progress every five years. In the early years, the goal was to cut heat-trapping emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
Ten year later, the aim is now even more ambitious. By 2050, California hopes to have cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80%, which would make it a paragon of hope not just for other states to follow but also for other countries. And it is something that the state says will actually work to create jobs.
“The plan will help us meet both our climate and our clean air goals in the coming decades and provide billions of dollars in investments to cut greenhouse gases, smog and toxic pollution in disadvantaged communities throughout the state,” says California Air Resources Board Chair Mary D. Nichols, in a statement. “It is also designed to continue to drive creative innovation, generating good new jobs in the growing clean technology sector.”
For the last decade, California has enacted a number of measures — everything from a cap-and-trade program to renewable portfolio standards to more fuel efficient vehicles. It’s also heavily involved in water conversation, battery storage and energy efficiency.
Under the plan announced Friday, the emissions trading program would continue through 2030 — a measure that the state considers its most cost effective carbon strategy. To that end, $3.4 billion in cap-and-trade funds have been invested in climate technologies. Meanwhile, the state could also require oil and gas refineries to reduce their heat trapping emissions by 20 percent, and there would be a focus on near zero-emission vehicle technologies.
Okay, so how does California’s aggressive climate change action plan jibe with what is expected to be a “loose” federal carbon strategy? The answer, of course, has multiple layers with one of them involving states rights versus federal oversight.
In the past, Republicans have favored using the states as the testing grounds for new ideas and even those that may run counter to what the central government is espousing. While California’s strategy to achieve carbon cuts is multifaceted, some parts of it — such as setting emissions standards on vehicles — would need federal approval. Ironically, during his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing, Scott Pruitt — designee to fill the role EPA administrator — was ambivalent as to whether he would favor such rights with regard to setting vehicle emissions standards.
Carbon emissions from power plants is a different matter and dependent on the ultimate fate of the Clean Power Plan that requires 32% cuts by 2030 from 2005 levels. Right now, that’s being reviewed by a U.S. district court that is expected to give it the thumb’s up. It would then head to the U.S. Supreme Court that right now is evenly split on the issue. Trump will pick the tie-breaking vote.
Obama’s EPA drew up the Clean Power Plan. But Trump’s pick to head it, Pruitt, has sued EPA in federal court to stop the plan. Nevertheless, he also said during the confirmation hearing that humans do have a hand in global warming, although he said that quantifying that contribution was hard. It’s a position similar to what Rick Perry now holds, who is Trump’s pick to head the Department of Energy.
While neither Pruitt nor Perry would say definitively that climate change is human induced, climate experts are saying just that: “One could argue that about 75 percent of the warmth was due to human impact,” says Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, in an interview with the New York Times. “We expect records to continue to be broken as global warming proceeds.”
Indeed, 2016 is now ranked as the hottest year ever recorded and the third consecutive year for record-breaking temperatures. And, 17 of the warmest years ever have occurred in the last 18 years, says the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
At least 35 countries, including the United States have increased their GDP while also cutting their carbon dioxide output. Meantime, the Brookings Institution says that at least 30 states have delinked their economic growth and carbon emissions — and they still expanded.
To the end, states like California will assume a leading role, along with the northeastern states — with key business support. California-based Internet and high tech giants like Apple, Intel and Facebook support a carbon-constrained economy and have vowed to get all of their energy from renewable sources.
The reality is that the nation is on well on its way to achieving the carbon reduction goals set by the Obama administration. And that’s something that Trump can’t undo — despite what his unrivaled ego is telling him.
