It was Pavely, the first mayor of Agoura Hills who will soon end 16 years in the state Legislature, who recalled the thick brown layer of smog over Los Angeles. Signatories commit to either reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 or achieving a per capita annual emission target of less than 2 metric tons by 2050.
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Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that will require the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2030. While previous law required the state to reduce emissions by 2020, the new measure, SB 32, sets a new, more aggressive target for 2030.
“In the 10 years since the California Global Warming Solutions Act became law, the state’s economy and renewable energy generation capacity have grown, while climate pollution and oil and electricity consumption have dropped”. But Nielsen said Brown’s office has “turned a blind eye” in moving ahead with climate-change legislation, calling it a “shocking contradiction to the clear legal opinion provided by the Legislature’s own attorney”.
The chamber warned that the expanded climate change law will require severe new restrictions that could make the state’s energy supply less affordable. He also will sign a companion bill that increases the emphasis on direct reductions and gives the California Air Resources Board, the agency charged with implementing state climate policy, enhanced legislative oversight.
California has often set benchmarks for environmental programs, and state leaders said they hope other places around the country follow their lead on climate.
Experts said going forward will be more challenging because the new goal – to reduce emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 – is considerably more ambitious and numerous easy solutions have been employed.
Supporters overcame strong opposition from oil companies and other industry interests to pass the legislation a year after business-friendly Democrats in the Assembly derailed an even more ambitious proposal to limit the use of oil in the state. The SB 32 statute now codifies an executive order Brown issued previous year.
Despite pushing the climate goals through, the centerpiece of the state’s effort to combat global warming remains in jeopardy. That program allows companies to buy permits to pollute at auctions; the money is then spent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Brown chose an urban natural park on the edge of downtown Los Angeles as his setting to sign the legislation into law on Thursday. It expands on California’s landmark 2006 law, which set the goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The last two permit sales also have fizzled.
From front left, California Senate President pro tempore Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, state Sen. Fran Pavley, who wrote SB 32.
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The legislation is a priority for Brown. Jerry Brown, right, and Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, speaks prior to the signing of legislation in Los Angeles, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016.
