Climate 411

Western Climate Initiative auction hits a new record, raising over a billion in proceeds for California

By Katelyn Roedner Sutter / Published: August 25, 2021

Photo by Tom Brewster Photography for the Bureau of Land Management

The results of the Western Climate Initiative’s August auction were released today and all current and future vintage allowances sold at record-high allowance prices.

This news follows two other key climate updates from this summer: The release of the 2019 California Emissions Inventory which looks back at the state’s encouraging emissions progress, and the launch of the Climate Change Scoping Plan update process, which looks ahead at how the state will achieve its 2030 and 2045 targets. Taken together, all of these updates show that California has a golden opportunity to raise its climate ambition, as communities across the state grapple with intensifying, climate-fueled wildfires and drought.

Read More »

Posted in California, Carbon Markets / Comments are closed

With the Climate Crisis Act, California can lock in a safer pathway to net-zero emissions

By Katelyn Roedner Sutter / Published: August 16, 2021

The new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes clear what Californians already know: the climate crisis is upon us. Impacts like ever-more-extreme wildfires, intensifying drought, and the growing threat of sea-level rise are accelerating, and the widespread damage are only going to intensify unless we take bold, swift action to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

In California, no person or region will be immune, and the harms from climate change are felt first and worst by communities that historically have borne a disproportionate burden of California’s pollution: communities of people with low wealth, people of color, indigenous people, and farmworkers, among others.

California urgently needs to get on track to meet the state’s 2030 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below the 1990 level by 2030; it has the slate of policies needed to succeed but must maximize near-term climate ambition. At the same time, it is essential for California to have a long-term vision and ensure that policy decisions made with an eye toward 2030 are consistent with the need to achieve net-zero emissions as swiftly as possible, and no later than 2045.

That’s why it is crucial for California to adopt the new Climate Crisis Act (AB 1395), co-authored by Assembly Members Al Muratsuchi and Cristina Garcia, to dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. This bill will cement California’s commitment to a safer pathway — a pathway that aligns with the science and achieves net-zero emissions — while also providing crucial guidelines that can maximize reductions, preserve environmental integrity and safeguard communities. Here’s why CA lawmakers should back this bill.

Read More »

Posted in News / Comments are closed

Oregon’s Climate Protection Program must live up to its name

By Erica Morehouse / Published: August 11, 2021

As Oregon faces another out of control wildfire season, the state’s lead environmental agency, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), just released regulatory language for its Climate Protection Program, a program intended to be a pillar of the state’s strategy to meet the ambitious climate goals Governor Brown committed the state to in 2020.

The stakes are high for this critical rulemaking, which will decide whether Oregon truly follows through on its climate commitments. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Governor Brown wrote that Oregon is “working to lead the way” on climate change. With the latest IPCC report underscoring how climate change is affecting every inhabited region across the globe and how many damaging impacts are accelerating, we are at a moment where climate leadership is desperately needed.

But at this critical moment, the DEQ’s proposed Climate Protection Program falls far short of what we expect from effective climate action. There’s still time for the program to be strengthened as the public comment period for the program is only just beginning, but Oregon’s decision-makers must ensure that the Climate Protection Program will deliver the swift, equitable and ambitious climate action that Oregon needs.

Read More »

Posted in Cities and states, Greenhouse Gas Emissions / Comments are closed

California needs to raise its ambition to beat the climate crisis. This policy will be key.

By Katelyn Roedner Sutter / Published: July 29, 2021

This post was authored with Katie Schneer, High Meadows Fellow for subnational climate policy at EDF, and Mayu Takeuchi, intern for U.S. Climate at EDF.

This summer, as Californians face an onslaught of climate-fueled disasters like severe drought and explosive wildfires, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is launching the development of a roadmap that will outline the next phase of the state’s climate fight.

The 2022 Climate Change Scoping Plan, which will guide the state towards achieving its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target and its 2045 net-zero emissions target, is a critical opportunity for California to double-down on its climate ambition. State leaders should harness this moment to calibrate California’s suite of climate policies to ensure that the state not only meets its climate goals, but maximizes cuts in emissions this decade.

California’s cap-and-trade program, which launched in 2013, is one of the key policies that should be fine-tuned to respond to the urgency of the climate crisis that Californians are seeing across the state. CARB should act swiftly to ensure that the most important aspect of this program — the emissions cap — is stringent enough to ensure that California meets its 2030 emissions goal of a 40% reduction below 1990 the emissions level and delivers the most reductions in pollution as quickly as possible.

Here’s why CARB should tighten the emissions cap:

Read More »

Posted in California, Carbon Markets, Cities and states, Greenhouse Gas Emissions / Read 1 Response

Climate change threatens Louisiana’s future, but the state is taking bold action to increase its resilience

By Devyani Kar / Published: July 22, 2021

Louisiana has lost 2,000 square miles of coastal wetlands in less than a century, threatening communities from sea level rise and more intense hurricanes. Photo: Leslie Von Pless, EDF

Louisiana represents the paradox of a modern state shaped by a history of fossil fuel-supported development and structural racism that is now dealing with the climate-driven and social impacts of those choices.

As it attempts to do so, it has become a center of climate adaptation and resilience practices, and more recently, climate mitigation efforts, while seeking the right balance for its people, economy and environment.

The results so far look like this:

Read More »

Posted in Basic Science of Global Warming, Cities and states, Extreme Weather, News, Science / Comments are closed

The EU has the power to bring transformational change to global shipping

By Panos Spiliotis / Published: July 20, 2021

Container cargo freight ship with working crane loading bridge in shipyard at dusk.

This post was written by Panos Spiliotis, Global Climate Shipping Manager for EDF, and also appears on EDF Europe.

The European Commission’s “Fit for 55” policy package opens a powerful new opportunity to decarbonise shipping—a sector with a growing share of global emissions (roughly 3%) that is not covered by any EU climate target.

Released last week, the ‘Fit for 55’ package is the most robust policy proposal package set out by any of the world’s economies to date and signals to the international community that the EU is focused on its new target to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030. The Commission’s proposal to include international maritime transport in the EU Emissions Trading System can carry shipping a long way to a zero-carbon future; however, the policy suite fails in other ways to steer shipping entirely away from fossil fuels. Instead of kicking the can down the road, Brussels should chart a course that steers the sector away from liquefied natural gas (LNG) and toward cleaner options.

EU must stop favouring LNG
One key feature of the package, “Refuel EU,” mandates a progressive decrease in the carbon content of marine fuels. Unfortunately, the European Commission has put forward targets that will boost the use of LNG and biofuels in shipping—a pointless half-measure that will not lead to real transformative action. It is a sorely missed opportunity. If appropriately designed, the Refuel EU fuel standard could incentivize zero-carbon fuels.

Read More »

Posted in Carbon Markets, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, International, Shipping, United Nations / Read 2 Responses