However, these emissions have heat-trapping effects, so reducing their presence can help fight climate change, Brown said.
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Last October, Governor Brown signed landmark legislation – SB 350 – to double the rate of energy efficiency savings in California buildings and generate half of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
Under the new law, a category of gases – short-lived climate pollutants having significant effect on global warming, has been included. Per the bill, dairy farmers have to cut methane emissions to 40% below 2013 levels by 2030. Authorities concerned were of the view that the farmers will be able to do the same with the help of $50 million from the state’s fee charged to polluters known as cap-and-trade. Such equipment is expensive, however, which worries the state’s dairy farmers.
“This bill curbs these unsafe pollutants and thereby protects public health and slows climate change”.
But Republicans do not think that the law will do any benefit to agricultural businesses.
“This mandated 40 percent reduction in methane and 50 percent reduction in anthropogenic black carbon gas represents a direct assault on California’s dairy industry and will hurt manufacturing”, a small-business group, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said in a news release.
On the other hand, the bill’s author, Democratic Sen. “With these bold and ambitious goals, we’ll continue to set the standard for climate policy worldwide”.
Some moderate Democrats, including from poor and heavily polluted areas of the state, had complained during the petroleum debate that California’s climate change policies did too little for the environment in their districts.
Additionally, the Governor issued an executive order previous year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, a goal which is now codified by historic legislation the Governor recently signed that sets the most ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets in North America.
According to a report in “name of publication” by Jonathan J. Cooper, “California will begin regulating greenhouse-gas emissions tied to dairy cows and landfills under legislation signed Monday by Gov”.
“Cutting black carbon and other super pollutants is the critical next step in our program to combat climate change”, Brown said during a ceremony held near a playground in the shadow of an oil refinery in Long Beach.
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In addition to black carbon, which comes from trucks as well as the burning of organic material and other sources, the bill also requires reductions in hydrofluorocarbons, used in refrigeration and to power aerosol products. It’s tied to $90 million in funding for the dairy industry and garbage collectors. Brown lobbied for the bill in the Legislature, emphasizing the health effects of black carbon after lawmakers rebuffed his proposal to reduce petroleum use in motor vehicles past year. Ricardo Lara of Bell Gardens, nearly exclusively with Democratic support.
