Comment Log Display

Cap and Trade is not working in California. The data we have from
the Adaptive Management tool shows that emissions have gone up
since 2010, quite significantly. This is what we know even before
the Cal EPA report on AB 32's impacts on environmental justice
communities.

Environmental justice communities need to be prioritized because we
are and historically have been most impacted by pollution and
exposure to other environmental hazards. And government has a
responsibility to ensure public health, not business profits.

I have this inhaler - and the other medications I take every day -
because I grew up in Oildale, a community surrounded by oil
extraction activities. I continue to need this inhaler more than I
should because the community where I live now - a mostly people of
color neighborhood thanks to redlining and racial covenants - was
deemed the appropriate place for a new freeway.

The EJAC has been to San Bernadino, Brawley, and environmental
justice communities across the state, and there are still plenty of
improvements that are needed here in California, mostly by reducing
the emissions of industry and the products they create. Children
today shouldn't continue to pay the price for anyone's
unwillingness to change course. 

I want to reiterate - as I've told ARB staff many times - that it
seems like the decision to pursue REDD+ has already been made, as
all of the documents assume an ambitious path forward from this
point. This is even though there is significant and continued
opposition from environmental justice communities. ARB could learn
from the models we've heard about today in Brazil, which are
grassroots up.

I think it's ambitious - to say the least - to assume that ARB is
somehow more qualified than the United Nations to create a program
that doesn't replicate the human rights violations we've heard
about in Nigeria and other countries that have current REDD
programs.

In conclusion, we oppose REDD+, and encourage ARB and the
stakeholders in this room to explore other methods to preserve
tropical forests while allowing for more ambitious emissions
reductions here in California.