The draft scoping plan is inadequate to meet basic guidelines
that would align with the Biden goal of 50-52 Percent
Reduction in U.S. Greenhouse Gas Pollution from 2005 Levels in
2030. The draft plan may not achieve even 40% by
2030.
California’s goal should be at least an 80% reduction in
emissions by 2030. A former coordinating
author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and
Professor of Sustainability at UC Berkeley, Daniel Kammen, Ph.D.,
set out a scientifically backed and feasible program for California
in 2021. It calls for an 80% reduction in emissions by 2030.
The draft plan only aims for an 80% reduction emissions by
2045. The draft plan’s
reliance on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) or direct carbon
capture (DAC) to balance 20% of our emissions is more than New York
(15%) and far more than the State of Washington (5%).[6]5.
Neither CCS nor
DAC should be counted on as scalable. The March
28, 2022 IPCC report
on the capacity of different actions to reduce greenhouse gases
puts CCS as the least effective and most expensive of the 43
climate actions the IPCC evaluated for deployment prior to
2030. Why are these methods being included at all?
In a business-as-usual kind of way, the draft plan drags out
elimination of pollution that disproportionately affects poor
people and people of color. But rapid elimination of GHG pollution
costs less than the health costs of continuing pollution. This
delay is in contradiction to the Environmental Justice Advisory
Council's demand that CARB move quickly and comprehensively to
counteract the historial,disproportionately negative effects of
carbon and energy pollution on disadvantaged communities.
Please amend the draft to truly address the emissions and
pollution crisis that we are presently in.
Sincerely,
Lynda Marin
Citizens' Climate Lobby Santa Cruz