Comment Log Display

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the future policies to
control California’s carbon emissions.  I commend the CARB and
California’s legislators for the thoughtful and consistent
attention they have brought to mitigating the causes of climate
change, not just adapting to its inevitable repercussions.  This is
truly a great and forward-looking state that has put a price on
carbon earlier than any.  However, because there is great urgency
to mitigating carbon emissions, I urge you to evaluate the modeling
of a revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend pricing scenario and
compare and contrast the benefits of the cap and trade versus the
carbon fee and dividend systems for a swifter reduction in carbon
emissions

Please consider that in the last 9 years since AB 32 went into
effect, by your diagram on page 19 of the 2030 Scoping Plan Update
the reduction in GHG emissions has lowered by about 50 MMTCO2e.  We
are 5 years away from 2020’s limit of 260 that is (by projection)
about 170 MMTCO2e of hoped for reduction – in 5 years!  This is so
very complicated but the big picture seems to indicate that a cap
and trade pricing of carbon emissions may not be up to the even
steeper rate of decline that this Scoping Plan is seeking. 

Clearly California is a leader in science based and political
thinking about climate change and what is to be done at the state
level.  Its people support this effort.  As Governor Brown has said
recently, California is up to this challenge.  

I urge you to consider the carbon fee and dividend method of
pricing carbon emissions in a way that predicts direct monetary and
health advantage to all but most importantly to those most
disadvantaged by those emissions. It can be implemented quickly and
with pricing that acknowledges the market factors it aims to
influence: the competitiveness of non-fossil fuel energy sources
and the rapid decline of fossil fuel usage. 

Urgency is the silent factor in this equation that is easily
forgotten.

Please keep urgency in your sites as you engage with this Scoping
Plan and ask: how quickly can we reach our goals? not just what
should those goals be.

A revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend is worth studying as an
alternative to our cap and trade system.

Thank you for your work.

Liza C. White
Member, Citizens’ Climate Lobby 

C: 310 709 2101
LizaCWhite@gmail.com
908 Malcolm Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024

“We can ignore reality, but we can’t ignore the consequences of
ignoring reality.” 
– Ayn Rand