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California adopts comprehensive climate change action plan

California has formally committed itself to a package of measures that will reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 – a 15% reduction on current levels.

The climate change ‘scoping plan’, which is part of the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, cements California’s participation in a cap-and-trade programme and wide-reaching efforts in energy efficiency and renewables.

“[The plan] will guide capital investments into energy efficiency to save us money, into renewable energy to break our dependence on oil, and promote a new generation of green jobs for hundreds of thousands of Californians,” says Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board (ARB).

The proposed measures will expand existing energy and water efficiency programmes, and will increase the proportion of renewable energy to over 30% – including the full deployment of the California Solar Initiative.

New buildings – both residential and commercial – will have to reach or exceed efficiency standards, and new state building will be expected to ‘lead by example’.

New high-speed rail links for the region are also part of the plan, as well as the introduction of a low-carbon fuel standard and regulations to curb emissions from trucks and ships docked in Californian ports.

The final component of the plan – a cap-and-trade programme – will be developed in collaboration with the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), a group of seven US states and four Canadian region who have pledged to reduce emissions and create a regional carbon market.

ARB now has to develop the measures into regulations that will come into force in 2012.

For further information:
www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/document/scopingplandocument.htm
www.arb.ca.gov

17 December 2008

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