What is California doing to fight climate change? Not enough to prevent catastrophe

This is a year of great significance for California. It’s the start of a new decade and the landmark 2020 presidential election year.

We’re also less than 10 years out from a critical deadline. Scientists say we have until 2030 to stop the most catastrophic impacts of our climate crisis. That’s not much time, especially considering that families and small businesses across our state have suffered greatly from the devastating consequences of climate inaction, from wildfires to flooding.

With this in mind, we evaluated how California is doing in addressing climate change. Our state is thought of as a world leader in this fight. California’s 2006 historic law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was a watershed moment, but what have we done since then? Are we poised to tackle this decade with the kind of leadership that this crisis demands?

To answer these questions we evaluated the track record of California overall, the Governor, and our state legislators. To determine California’s grade, we looked at the overarching sectors that we need to make significant progress in by 2030. For each area, we examined how pro-environment bills fared in policy committees and how many became law, as well as how anti-environment bills were handled in 2019.

Here’s what we found: California, as a whole, received a C- grade (71%). The Governor received a B. Only seven out of 120 state legislators merited 100 percent scores for environmental leadership.

The reason for California’s low grade? Last year, most climate policy efforts were incremental, focused on defending against rollbacks or stalled in the legislative process.

Senate Bill 307 and SB 1, for example, were both defense bills. SB 307 became law, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 1.

Assembly Bill 1080 and SB 54 aimed to reduce single-use packaging in California, and could have reduced our waste and pollution, but they stalled. AB 345, which aggressively sought to protect communities from oil drilling, was also was held up. SB 200 was a landmark win for safe drinking water, but it pulls existing climate funding away from other important investments.

Now, I’m not here just to call our leaders out for this. I want to shine a light on the opportunity and mandate we have to put in place a comprehensive vision to fight the climate crisis.

We know what needs to be done. This must be the first year of a decisive decade of action. Business as usual won’t cut it. We need transformative change from top to bottom.

Scientists have already identified the sectors that we need to address in order to reduce pollution and stop the warming. We need comprehensive legislation and funding to build a clean economy and transition our workforce, transform our transportation, and invest in natural lands and infrastructure, among others. In the coming years, we want to see our Legislature put forth sweeping policy changes that include:

▪ Reimagining our transportation systems by expanding public transit systems and making them more affordable, electrifying all transportation and creating walkable, bikeable communities.

▪ Helping our workforce transition away from fossil fuel industries to clean energy, family-sustaining jobs, including incentivizing companies to locate in targeted regions, partnering with unions and academic institutions to provide training and a pipeline.

▪ Investing in our air, land and water to prepare for what’s happening and protect our landscapes and cityscapes by better managing our forests, greening our communities and getting our agriculture industries to capture carbon instead of adding to the problem.

This is a huge challenge, but it’s also a major opportunity. Our current economy was built on extraction, pollution and exploitation. We can rebuild our economy and infrastructure to prioritize people of color. We can reimagine our state in a way that’s more equitable and just. We can do better.

We know what the solutions are; that’s not the problem. What we’re missing is the political will to get it done. The good news is that the will of the people is already there. A recent poll from UC Berkeley found that 85 percent of likely voters list climate change as their top priority. This is a clear mandate to our lawmakers.

We are in a crisis. That means it’s time for our government to lead and drive visionary change. The status quo is not enough. Everything depends on it. Let’s earn that A and make 2020 the year of decisive, bold action for our future.