Dear CARB Board Members,
We need a more aggressive emission reduction plan that will
signal California's willingness to follow its own science based
targets for GHG emission reductions.
Background: The science is in and the IPCC recenttly also
noted that the existing fleet of fossil fired machines (including
furnaces, water heaters and light duty vehicles) has normal rest of
its planned life emissions that consume all carbon budget below 2
degree C rise limit.
This is sobering.
Let it sink in. Let it guide our policy making for
delivering a least cost, most livable future to those who depend on
or present actions and upon our willingness to take some
responsibility and to shoulder some part of the cost of making a
livable future.
It means that to hold to the 2 degree rise, we need to no longer
install replacement fossil fired devices.
So that means we need CARB's help to rapidly take them off the
shelves so they are no longer the default item for replacing their
older bretherin devices as they burn out.
CARB can act to immediatly normalize the transition to a livable
all electric future for buildings and ground transportation.
My four decades of practice in the nexus of building science and
as a long term electric grid planner have helped me see the
usefulness of favoring the most efficient and well behaved of the
electrficiation appliance choices in order to reduce grid stress as
we rapidly electrify.
My years of local policy development show me the value to acting
at every level we can reach, and I see that CARB has several levers
within its reach. Please use this opportunity to inspire
staff to redevelop the scoping plan to its full potentioal as a
plan to immediatly pivot away from fossil fuels in buildings and
vehicles and to embrace full speed efficient electrification with
no more installation of fossil devices as the new normal.
Since it is our generation's responsibility to immediatly make
this full pivot toward no longer installing the wrong things, I
want to express my thanks to you for applying the courage needed
for this change.
Best wishes for bold steps toward a better future.
Sincerely,
Tom Kabat
Energy Engineer,
Menlo Park, CA