We must all work to prevent the current disaster of fires,
floods and heatwaves from developing into a catastrophe. CARB's
Draft Scoping Plan Update is not ambitious enough. Please
strengthen and improve it so that it responds to the urgent alarm
raised by the recent IPCC reports that emphasize that this decade
is our last best chance to mitigate the impact of the disaster that
is already unfolding in California and around the world.
The Draft Scoping Plan must accelerate our progress towards our
GHG targets. 2030 is simply not soon enough for our GHG emissions
to fall 40% below 1990 levels. And 2045 is not soon enough for us
to achieve carbon neutrality. Parts of the plan are almost
laughable: the proposal to get us over the line into carbon
neutrality by capture and storage of 100MMT of GHG relying on
technology that doesn’t exist and with costs that are
completely unknown verges on magical thinking. This plan is simply
not good enough to meet the urgency of the climate crisis and the
desperate need for bold actions.
Please amend Scoping Plan 2022 to achieve the following more
substantial goals:
++ accelerate the phase-out of oil and gas
extraction and oil refining
++ discourage any more investment
in fossil fuel infrastructure so that it can be dedicated to
carbon-free strategies
++ eliminate or significantly reduce
our reliance on unproven and costly CCS technologies that the plan
depends on to permit the prolonged use of carbon fuel sources
++ pursue more robust transportation sector targets
++
decarbonizing buildings
Thank you for your consideration of my
comments