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newsrel -- Air Resources Board releases proposed strategy to reduce impact of powerful climate pollutants

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 16:48:42
Please consider the following news release from the California
Air Resources Board: http://bit.ly/1T0hwPt

 
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 11, 2016

NEWS RELEASE 16-13

CONTACT:

Stanley Young
(916) 322-2990
stanley.young@arb.ca.gov



Air Resources Board releases proposed strategy to reduce impact
of powerful climate pollutants

Reductions of short-lived climate pollutants to deliver
environmental, economic benefits in short term


************************************

NOTE: FOR ACCREDITED MEDIA: A teleconference call on the Proposed
Strategy with CARB Chair Mary Nichols, Executive Officer Richard
Corey, and Science and Policy advisor Dr. Ryan McCarthy is at:
10 a.m. PDT, Tuesday April 12, 2016 / Dial: 800-988-9707 / Code:
7349096#

***********************************


SACRAMENTO - The Air Resources Board today released a new draft
of California’s Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Strategy to
drastically reduce the near-term climate impacts of these potent
pollutants. Short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) are chemical
agents with an outsized global warming impact up to thousands of
times stronger than carbon dioxide.

These agents include methane, black carbon (soot) and
hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) —chemicals most often used as
refrigerants, aerosols and in insulation. Together, these
pollutants represent about 12 percent of California’s total
annual greenhouse gas emissions inventory, but pose an immediate
danger to the state and must be dealt with on a highly
accelerated timeframe. 

“Science tells us that making cuts in emissions of these powerful
climate pollutants will reduce the near-term impacts of climate
change as we phase down fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions,”
said CARB Chair Mary D. Nichols. “Actions to reduce emissions of
short-lived climate pollutants also improve air quality and
reduce related health risks, hospitalizations, and medical
expenses.”

Short-lived climate pollutants were recognized by scientists
early on as major contributors to global warming, but the super
pollutants took a back seat as nations first targeted carbon
dioxide, the more pervasive and long lived greenhouse gas.

Now that broad reaching efforts to address carbon dioxide are
underway across the globe, the international community is turning
its attention to reducing the potent super pollutants -- and
California is leading the way.  

Governor Edmund G. Brown emphasized the need for addressing super
pollutants by making their reduction over the next decade one of
the Five Pillars of the State’s 2030 climate program development.
Governor Brown is also actively supporting implementation of the
draft Strategy by including $215 million in his proposed
2016-2017 budget to support a range of immediate actions.

“The impact of these super pollutants is real and the fight
against climate change must include a strategy to aggressively
reduce them,” said Governor Brown.

The payoff for investments to cut the super pollutants will be
seen in the near term --over the coming 15 years --while the
larger efforts to turn the tide on carbon dioxide gain traction
and ratchet down emissions over the coming decades. We now know
that immediate action on cutting super pollutants in California
would reduce damage to forests and crops, lower background ozone
and help clean the air in the state’s most polluted regions,
including the Central Valley. 

This need for focused and immediate attention on super pollutants
was recognized by the Legislature in Senate Bill 605 (2014),
authored by Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens).

This year, Senator Lara introduced the Short-Lived Climate
Pollutant Reduction Act of 2016 (Senate Bill 1383), which would
codify the targets identified in this Proposed Strategy: reducing
human-caused black carbon emissions by 50 percent, and methane
and HFCs 40 percent below current levels by 2030.

This would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 94 million metric tons
of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) annually under the
approach that measures the impact of these super pollutants over
a 20-year span. That is roughly the equivalent of the greenhouse
gases associated with all the electricity (both in-state and
imported) used in California in 2013.  

Short-Lived Climate Pollutants:
These pollutants trap heat at many times the level of carbon
dioxide, but also tend to have a shorter lifetime in the
atmosphere, ranging from a few days or weeks to about 10 years.

Methane:
Methane is the most abundant of the short-lived climate
pollutants in California.  Nearly 60 percent of California’s
methane emissions are produced by agricultural activities,
primarily at dairy farms. California is the nation’s largest
dairy state, home to 20 percent of U.S. milk production, and milk
is the state’s leading agricultural commodity.  In 2014,
California’s dairy industry generated a record $9.4 billion – as
much as the state’s almond, walnut, and pistachio industries
combined.

Reducing dairy methane emissions
The Strategy calls for cutting manure methane emissions from
dairies by 75 percent by 2030, which would reduce overall methane
emissions from California’s dairy industry (including enteric
fermentation emissions from cows) by more than 40 percent.  To
meet these goals, following approval of the final Strategy, CARB
will open a collaborative rulemaking process to address dairy
manure emissions.  Working with CDFA, local air and water quality
districts, dairy farmers, environmental justice communities, and
other stakeholders – the regulatory process will consider
available financial incentives and market support and potential
economic impacts in order to identify appropriate timelines and
requirements for the industry.

“In the San Joaquin Valley, environmental justice communities are
at the epicenter of SLCP emissions and their impacts,” said Tom
Frantz of the Association of Irritated Residents (AIR) and member
of the AB 32 Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (EJAC). 
“I’m pleased to see one of EJACs priority recommendations
included here.  We look forward to continuing work with state
agencies and the dairy industry to achieve the goals identified
in this plan, including bringing economic and health benefits to
disadvantaged communities."

In addition, the Proposed Strategy also sets a goal to reduce
enteric fermentation emissions from the dairy industry by 25
percent in 2030. The coordinated approach of incentives and
regulation will aim to develop a competitive, low-carbon dairy
industry in California, cutting overall methane emissions by more
than 26 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2030,
a 50 percent reduction of dairy methane emissions.

Effectively eliminate disposal of organic waste in landfills:
The Strategy also calls for reducing methane emissions by cutting
the flow of organic waste into landfills and putting it to
beneficial use – through food recovery and rescue programs or by
creating compost or renewable energy and fuel. This could reduce
emissions from organic disposal, provide access to healthy foods
in food insecure communities, and generate investment and new
jobs in building and maintaining new or expanded compost and
anaerobic digestion facilities. Working together, CalRecycle and
CARB will have a regulation in place by 2018 to effectively
eliminate disposal of organics in landfills by 2025.

“Methane is an incredibly powerful global warming agent, but
instead of losing it to the atmosphere, we can recover it from
organic waste and put it to good use,” said Los Angeles Mayor
Eric Garcetti. “I am excited to partner with the State on this
critical effort.”

The Proposed Strategy also calls for effectively implementing
regulations currently under development at CARB and the CPUC to
cut methane emissions by 45 percent from oil and gas exploration,
extraction, pipeline and storage facilities by 2025.

Black Carbon:
California has already reduced black carbon emissions by more
than 90 percent in the last 50 years, primarily through the
state’s stringent diesel regulations. The Proposed Strategy
highlights additional state efforts such as working with local
air districts to reduce black carbon from home woodstoves to
achieve an additional 3 million metric tons of reductions by
2030.  In his proposed 2016-2017 budget, Governor Brown included
$40 million to incentivize clean woodstoves.

The Strategy also notes the need for further efforts to reduce
black carbon from wildfires in the state’s forests, including
$140 million for CAL FIRE in the Governor’s budget to support
forest health and resiliency programs, approaches to foster
increased private investment in forest management, and to convert
larger amounts of wood waste into biofuel.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs):
The Proposed Strategy acknowledges that the most effective way to
achieve significant reductions in HFC emissions is a global
phase-down of their use under the Montreal Protocol. If a global
agreement to do so is not reached, California will consider
developing its own phasedown, as Europe has done and other
countries are considering.

For short-term, Governor Brown’s proposed budget includes $20
million for incentives to replace high-GWP HFCs with more climate
friendly alternatives. CARB will also develop bans on the use of
high GWP refrigerants in sectors and applications where lower-GWP
alternates are feasible and readily available.

Economic, Health, Environmental Analysis
The report evaluates the economic, public health and
environmental justice implications of the proposed new measures
along with a detailed environmental analysis.  In particular,
projects that utilize organic waste or dairy manure to provide
transportation fuel can capture significant value from credits
under the State’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and federal Renewable
Fuel Standard. 

Next Steps:
CARB will host workshops to discuss the Proposed Strategy prior
to its May 19 Board hearing when staff will present the Proposed
Strategy as an informational item. 

A final Reduction Strategy, including comments received on the
environmental analysis, will be voted on by the Board in the
fall.  Any specific proposal generating regulatory action will be
subject to its own separate public process with workshops,
opportunities for stakeholder discussion, consideration of
environmental justice impacts, and legally required analyses of
the economic and environmental impacts.

The Proposed Strategy is available here:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/shortlived/shortlived.htm

********************
NOTE: FOR ACCREDITED MEDIA: A teleconference call on the Proposed
Strategy with CARB Chair Mary Nichols, Executive Officer Richard
Corey and Science and Policy advisor Dr. Ryan McCarthy is at:
10 a.m. PDT, Tuesday April 12, 2016 /  Dial: 800-988-9707 / Code:
7349096#


California is in a drought emergency.
Visit www.SaveOurH2O.org for water conservation tips.

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