{"id":36252,"date":"2018-07-27T07:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36252"},"modified":"2018-07-27T07:00:06","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T12:00:06","slug":"californias-progress-or-lack-thereof-in-cutting-its-emissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36252","title":{"rendered":"California\u2019s progress, or lack thereof, in cutting its emissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

California\u2019s progress, or lack thereof, in cutting its emissions<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

\"\"The California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently published its 2018 inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to which the state achieved its goal of cutting GHG emissions below 1990 levels in 2016, four years in advance of the 2020 target date*. Gov. Jerry Brown claims that this proves that the state\u2019s anti-carbon laws and regulations are \u201csucceeding\u201d, but are they really? Here we take a brief look at CARB\u2019s data, concluding a) that success has not yet been achieved and b) that California\u2019s long-term emissions targets remain as elusive as ever.<\/p>\n

* There is no certainty that California\u2019s 2016 emissions (429 million tons) were in fact lower than its 1990 emissions. (431 million tons). With estimation errors in the 2-5% range<\/a> a 0.5% difference is not diagnostic.<\/em><\/p>\n

A few points to note before proceeding:<\/p>\n

The graphics and data used in this post are from CARB\u2019s 2018 inventory report<\/a> unless otherwise specified.<\/em><\/p>\n

CARB\u2019s emissions include all greenhouse gases from all sources, not just CO2 from fossil-fuel burning. Gases such as methane, Nox, fluorocarbons etc. are converted into CO2 equivalents on the basis of their \u201cglobal warming potential\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

CARB\u2019s electricity sector emissions cover the entire state. Previous posts on California have used only data from the three major utilities that make up the California Independent System Operator (CAISO)<\/a>, which between them account for about 75% of California\u2019s electricity transmission.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First a brief history of California\u2019s GHG emissions-reduction legislation. The bill that established the 1990-by-2020 GHG target (AB 32) was passed in 2006. Then in 2017 AB 398 set a new target of a GHG reduction of at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, and in April of this year an executive order established a longer-term target of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. (California is now considering another bill \u2013 SB100 \u2013 that reportedly calls for 100% renewable electricity by 2045, but more about this later).<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

California\u2019s progress, or lack thereof, in cutting its emissions The California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently published its 2018 inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to which the state achieved its goal of cutting GHG emissions below 1990 levels in 2016, four years in advance of the 2020 target date*. Gov. Jerry Brown claims […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,21013,21012,113,146,11260,1115,11990],"class_list":["post-36252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-california","tag-california-air-resources-board","tag-carb","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-co2-emissions","tag-energy-matters","tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions","tag-roger-andrews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36253,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36252\/revisions\/36253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}