The draft plan does not demonstrate that California is on track
to even meet the legally mandated goal of at least a 40% reduction
in greenhouse gases by 2030.
The draft plan does not follow AB 32’s requirement that
California achieve “the maximum technologically
feasible” emission reductions, using the most cost-effective
methods.
The draft plan will not keep global temperatures close to what
scientists say will avoid catastrophe. The world has only ten years
to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent if we are to attain
the goal. Yet the draft plan admits that it may not achieve even 40
percent by 2030.
The science of climate change requires front-loading our
response. California’s goal should be at least an 80
percent reduction in emissions by 2030. Prof. Daniel Kammen, former
coordinating author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change and Professor of Sustainability at UC Berkeley, set out a
scientifically backed and feasible program for California in 2021.
It calls for an 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2030.
The draft plan only aims for an 80 percent reduction in
emissions by 2045. Even more troubling, the draft’s reliance
on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) or direct air capture of
carbon (DAC) to reduce 20 percent of our emissions is more than
New York (15 percent) and far more than the State of
Washington (5 percent) anticipates.
Neither CCS nor DAC should be counted on as scalable.