Category Archives: Greenhouse Gas Reduction
Talking SB 350 On KQED This Morning At 9am

For those in the San Francisco Bay Area or with internet radio access, I’ll be on KQED radio this morning at 9am discussing California’s landmark new renewable energy and energy efficiency bill, SB 350.  The governor just signed it, as I blogged about this week, and it also contains overlooked but critical provisions on vehicle electrification.  Those provisions compensate for the bill language on reducing petroleum fuels by 50% by 2030 that the oil industry worked hard to strip.  Tune in if you can here.

California Enshrines Renewables And Energy Efficiency 2030 Goals — And Maybe Greenhouse Gas Goals, Too

Yesterday Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 350 (De Leon), a landmark bill that pledges California to a 50% renewable goal by 2030, as well as a doubling of energy efficiency in existing buildings by that date.

Despite the environmental win, it’s been well-reported by the media and others that California’s environmental leaders got beaten pretty badly this last legislative session by the oil industry. Faced with a provision in SB 350 that would mandate 50% petroleum reduction by 2030 and a bill to codify 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goals (SB 32), the industry launched a multi-million dollar campaign, full of false claims of impending gas rationing and price spikes, and targeted it at “moderate” Democrats in the legislature.

Signing ceremony today at Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

Signing ceremony today at Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

The plan worked. These democrats helped lead SB 32 to its demise and stripped SB 350 of the petroleum reduction goal.

But is it possible that the oil industry representatives missed an important provision in SB 350 relating to long-term greenhouse gas reduction goals?

Buried on page 59 in SB 350, the legislature for the first time codified the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent below those levels by 2050. The provisions begin in the findings section on the need to electrify transportation, via amendments to the state’s Public Utilities Code:

740.12. (a) (1) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

740.12. (a) (1) (D) Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 will require widespread transportation electrification.

The legislation then directs utilities to file applications with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for programs to electrify transportation in order to meet these climate goals:

740.12. (b) The commission, in consultation with the State Air Resources Board and the Energy Commission, shall direct electrical corporations to file applications for programs and investments to accelerate widespread transportation electrification to reduce dependence on petroleum, meet air quality standards, achieve the goals set forth in the Charge Ahead California Initiative…, and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 [italics added].

So in the context of electrifying transportation and utilities role in achieving it, the 2030 and 2050 goals are now law, giving the CPUC broad regulatory authority to achieve those goals in this sector.

This is no small potatoes. Electrification of transportation is absolutely essential to meeting long-term climate goals, given that almost 40 percent of emissions come from transportation. In the 50% petroleum reduction debate, it was clear that much of the decrease will be achieved anyway by 2030 given improved federal fuel economy standards and a continued leveling off of vehicles miles traveled per capita in the state – both of which basically would occur without any additional legislative action. But electrification of transportation will still be dependent on state action for the near term, including support for greater deployment of public charging stations and state rebates for electric vehicles purchases and leases, among other policies to boost this nascent industry. The 2030 and 2050 goals for electric vehicles now give the CPUC specific marching orders that would essentially achieve the 2030 petroleum reduction anyway, even without it being specifically called out in SB 350.

To be sure, this codification won’t benefit the full range of climate measures that California is taking for the years beyond 2020, when AB 32 authority plateaus. For example, other alternatives to petroleum, namely biofuels, are not covered by this provision. Currently, the low carbon fuel standard, a regulation under AB 32 authority, is the primary driver of biofuel deployment. Biofuels will be necessary to reduce emissions in the short term for passenger vehicles, at least until battery electrics become cheaper and better, and in the long-term for transportation like aviation and long-haul trucking that isn’t otherwise suitable for battery electrification. Cap-and-trade is also specifically authorized by AB 32 through 2020 and wouldn’t continue based solely on SB 350. In general, regulations from the California Air Resources Board to address climate pollution not tied to renewables, energy efficiency or electrification of transportation couldn’t be extended based solely on these provisions.

But the provisions could have another immediate impact, specifically with litigation over regional and local plans that may fail to take into account long-term climate goals. Most famously, San Diego’s regional transportation plan purports to reduce emissions from driving through 2035 but then backslides out to 2050. The agency argued it didn’t have to study the impacts out to 2050 because the goals are merely based in an executive order. The case is pending before the State Supreme Court on this issue (full disclosure: I co-authored an amicus brief with Legal Planeteer Rick Frank and Jayni Hein supporting the petitioner’s claims about the plan’s failure to study long-term impacts). But now petitioners in litigation like this one have a stronger case that the goals are in fact codified in legislation, and specifically in the transportation context.

And perhaps more importantly, these SB 350 provisions could now create a worthy rival to Big Oil. Big Utilities are itching to get into the electrification game, and they have the resources and power to compete with Big Oil in these legislative showdowns. While California doesn’t want to crowd out the electric vehicle space with utility entrenchment, the state will certainly need utilities to help with charging infrastructure and programs to manage the charging load more effectively. The provisions on Page 59 take the state down that path in a significant way, and the oil industry may soon regret their inclusion.

So while the environmental community has much to cheer about with yesterday’s signing in terms of renewables and energy efficiency, they shouldn’t overlook the important greenhouse gas provisions that may have an even more transformative effect on California’s long-term climate program — and the oil industry’s efforts to limit it.

Big Evening For Subnationals Signing Climate Climate “Under 2 MOU” Pledge
Governor Brown witnesses subnational leaders from around the globe signing the "Under 2 MOU" Thursday in New York.

Governor Brown witnesses subnational leaders from around the globe signing the “Under 2 MOU” Thursday in New York.

Last night subnational leaders from around the globe gathered in New York City to sign the California-led “Under 2 MOU” pledge.  The effort involves getting big cities and states within nations to commit to limiting warming to under two degrees centigrade by 2100 (hence the “under 2” name).

Governor Brown was on hand to witness the signing, and Berkeley Law helped support the event, which was I was there.  More from the Washington Post on it:

The additions Thursday brought to nearly 40 the number of major cities and provinces to sign the extraordinarily ambitious — though nonbinding — pact. Signers commit to either cutting pollution to 80 to 95 percent below 1990 levels, or attaining a per capita emissions goal of two metric tons of carbon emissions by 2050. The current per capita average of U.S. citizens is about 18 tons.

“We’re just getting warmed up,” said California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), who helped launch the movement. “And I promise you, no opposition . . . will stop California from reaching the sustainable goals we commit to tonight.”

Brown’s office said the signers — who include representatives from New York and Mexico City — collectively represent 313 million people and more than $8.7 trillion in gross domestic product. If they were a single country, it “would be the third largest economy in the world, behind only China and the United States,” the governor’s office said in a statement.

In the remarks leading up to the event, Glen Murray, Ontario’s environment minister, actually choked up describing the impacts of climate change on some of the northern provinces in Canada. As he said, many of those areas are already at 2 degrees warmer and will likely rise to seven degrees, effectively destroying much of the way of life there.

His remarks, and the fiery comments of Governor Brown, reminded the audience of the stakes and called them to action. If the effort is successful, it will not only lead to greater cooperation among these entities in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but hopefully force a more aggressive international treaty in Paris this December.

Encouraging Future For Batteries

Analysts are predicting a bright future for battery costs, thanks in large part to Tesla’s under-construction Gigafactory in Nevada:

Tesla’s grid battery, the Powerwall, is currently priced at about $250/kWh, but CTO JB Strabuel said at a recent utility conference that he expects that price to drop to about $100/kWh by the end of the decade as the company ramps up production.

That ambitious estimate is now being approached by other analyst predictions.

“Our detailed battery component cost analysis details a path to 50%+ reduction in battery pack cost to $125/kWh by 2020,” [Jefferies analyst Dan] Dolov said, according to StreetInsider. Jefferies expects the battery cells themselves to reach about $88/kWh by the end of the decade, and the battery packs to reach about $38/kWh.

The Tesla Gigafactory under construction

The Tesla Gigafactory under construction

A 50% reduction by 2020 would be monumental for the electric vehicle industry. Imagine double the range of current all-battery vehicles at the same price tag ($30K or so for the LEAF, for example). Imagine a high-end Tesla at $20-30K off the current price.

It’s worth keeping in mind that these predictions are only about 2020.  By 2030, when we need all new vehicles to be battery-electric to meet our climate goals, prices should come down even more, while public charging infrastructure will only improve.

And as I’ve said before, it’s not just about transportation. These batteries will be needed in bulk to store surplus solar and wind power to decarbonize the grid.

Basically, if you care about climate change, these kind of price forecasts are the most important pieces of news in the field.

A Bunch Of Garbage
Landfill methane capture in action

Landfill methane capture in action

People don’t necessarily associate landfills and solid waste with our energy and climate issues, but they are quite related.  The more trash that goes to landfills, the more they emit methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as the trash decomposes over time.  Meanwhile, that methane could be harvested, purified, and used to generate electricity.

The issue may be even more pressing now that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency appears to have badly underestimated the amount of trash Americans are sending to landfills:

For years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency relied on estimates to determine how much trash was being sent to landfills. But in 2010, the agency required most municipal landfills to measure and report how much trash was heading into the dumps, as part of an effort to lower heat-trapping methane emissions. Researchers at Yale University looked at the records for more than 1,200 landfills and calculated amounts, predominantly based on weights.

They figured it was 289 million tons in 2012, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. For the same year, EPA estimated the figure to be 135 million tons.

That means an estimated 34.5% recycling rate may actually be 21.4%.  That’s a lot of extra garbage at landfills that produce an estimated 91% of all methane emissions.

This information should give policy makers incentive to address two issues: first, ensure that we do a better job reducing landfill waste through more recycling and reusing of materials, plus better packaging; and second, we need to capture more methane from landfills to generate electricity, which can be done via underground pipes that let the methane seep into them.

It’s a multiple win scenario: less trash, less methane, and more renewable energy.

The Sunny View Of Climate Progress
Don't let these people take over the federal government.

Don’t let these people take over the federal government.

In an antidote to my doom-and-gloom post last week, Jonathan Chait tries to take the positive approach on climate change. He cites the rapidly decreasing cost of solar panels and other technological innovations, including battery storage, to make the case:

The energy revolution has rippled widely through the economy. In the first half of this year, renewable-energy installations accounted for 70 percent of new electrical power. As the energy mix has grown cleaner, people have found ways to use less of it, too. Incandescent bulbs have been replaced with efficient LEDs, in what Prajit Ghosh, director of power and renewables research at energy company Wood Mackenzie, refers to as a “total bulb revolution.” Tesla has introduced a new home battery, the “Powerwall,” and broken ground on a plant in Nevada, called the Gigafactory, with the capacity to churn out 500,000 lithium-ion battery packs per year, which will allow it to cut battery costs by a third and sell less expensive electric cars. And these are only today’s technologies. Laboratories from Cambridge to Silicon Valley are racing to develop next-generation batteries, as well as ultra­efficient solar cells, vehicles, kitchen appliances. For more than a century, everything that consumed energy was designed without a thought to the carbon dioxide that would be released into the air. Now everything from buildings to refrigerators is being designed anew to account for scientific reality.

But he ultimately frames the progress as a race against time. Not against nature, but against Republicans taking over the federal government and getting the country to back-track on this progress.

Still, he thinks Obama has locked in much innovation, while UN negotiators in Paris may be able to hammer out the framework of an international deal. All of which puts us on a path to avoid the worst-case climate scenarios.

I share some of the optimism on the technology side, but there’s no denying that humanity has locked in some unpleasant changes in the coming centuries.  Like the expression “all politics is local,” all environmentalism is local to some extent: many environmentalists have particular places on Earth that are special to them and that motivate their desire to protect the larger planet.  So it can be depressing to think about how favorite places will change forever in the face of this global challenge.

But if Chait is right, we are actually responding pretty quickly with new innovation and policies to encourage it, and it’s worth focusing on that progress and how we can continue it.

Overcoming Climate Gloom

Esquire reports on the deepening pessimism that many climate scientists are experiencing:

Among climate activists, gloom is building. Jim Driscoll of the National Institute for Peer Support just finished a study of a group of longtime activists whose most frequently reported feeling was sadness, followed by fear and anger. Dr. Lise Van Susteren, a practicing psychiatrist and graduate of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth slide-show training, calls this “pretraumatic” stress. “So many of us are exhibiting all the signs and symptoms of posttraumatic disorder—the anger, the panic, the obsessive intrusive thoughts.” Leading activist Gillian Caldwell went public with her “climate trauma,” as she called it, quitting the group she helped build and posting an article called “16 Tips for Avoiding Climate Burnout,” in which she suggests compartmentalization: “Reinforce boundaries between professional work and personal life. It is very hard to switch from the riveting force of apocalyptic predictions at work to home, where the problems are petty by comparison.”

Most of the dozens of scientists and activists I spoke to date the rise of the melancholy mood to the failure of the 2009 climate conference and the gradual shift from hope of prevention to plans for adaptation: Bill McKibben’s book Eaarth is a manual for survival on an earth so different he doesn’t think we should even spell it the same, and James Lovelock delivers the same message in A Rough Ride to the Future. In Australia, Clive Hamilton writes articles and books with titles like Requiem for a Species. In a recent issue of The New Yorker, the melancholy Jonathan Franzen argued that, since earth now “resembles a patient whose terminal cancer we can choose to treat either with disfiguring aggression or with palliation and sympathy,” we should stop trying to avoid the inevitable and spend our money on new nature preserves, where birds can go extinct a little more slowly.

While my expertise is on the law and policy side and not on the science, I can relate to some extent. You see enough studies and data about the inevitable and largely negative change that this planet will continue experiencing, and it makes for a nagging feeling of despair.

Maybe for that reason I actually enjoy working on the mitigation side of tackling climate change, as opposed to the adaptation or “preparation” side. With mitigation, we can focus on the technology solutions and the policies that enable them, offering some hope that we can manage the decline of our environment in a way that will still allow civilization to flourish.

And perhaps at some level, it’s important to have humility and perspective: Earth will still survive these climate changes, as the history of the planet has been one of great upheaval followed by rapid changes in evolution and redeployment of life. Some species out there now (maybe even some humans) will greatly benefit from these climate changes, and their descendants will probably repopulate the Earth like our mammalian ancestors did following the end of the dinosaur age.

But in the meantime, there’s not much else most of us can do other than trying to reduce carbon pollution through our policies and purchases.

California’s Major New Legislation For 50% Renewables And Doubling Energy Efficiency

This legislative season in California will rank as a big disappointment for environmentalists. The last-minute failure to secure a 50% petroleum reduction by 2030 goal, followed by the defeat (actually postponing) of the bill to set 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas reduction targets, was a major blow for environmentalists used to getting what they want out of Sacramento. Many commentators are starting to blame Governor Jerry “above the fray” Brown for not doing more to secure passage in the Assembly.

RowofWindTurbines2But lost in these setbacks is the major accomplishment of boosting California’s renewable energy standard to 50% by 2030, coupled with a mandate to double energy efficiency in existing buildings by that year. SB 350 (De Leon) may have been stripped of the petroleum goals, but these other targets are significant accomplishments. The energy efficiency piece set forth a process for the California Energy Commission to set long-term targets and evaluate progress on a regular basis, while the renewable energy mandate essentially just adds the 50% goal into the previous legislation requiring 33% by 2020 — in other words, no new process needs to be created for California to continue down this renewable path.

And finally, SB 350 makes it easier for California to develop a western regional market for renewables that will cover neighboring states and allow California both to import renewables from out-of-state when we need them and export our surplus renewables to other states. The legislation allows the California Independent System Operator, which essentially manages California’s grid, to change its governing rules to allow regional transmission operators to become part of the system. That will facilitate the import and export of renewables, helping California to better balance our in-state supply and ensure that dips in production don’t result in more natural gas-fired power.

So while the legislative season may have largely ended in disappointment, the accomplishments that did occur are worth celebrating for environmentalists.

What Does The Failure Of California’s Effort To Set 2030 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Mean For Ongoing Climate Efforts?
Sen. Pavley shows a misleading anti-SB 32 ad

Sen. Pavley shows a misleading anti-SB 32 ad

In another, even bigger setback for the environmental community in California, SB 32 (Pavley), the bill to set greenhouse gas targets for 2030 and 2050, was pulled yesterday and will be tried again next year.  The winners are the oil companies, who face tough regulations and competition from California’s climate efforts.

The failure is a big sting for climate advocates in the leading state on this issue.  I’m not an expert on the politics, but it appears from press reports that the culprit was oil industry-funded opposition and concern from lawmakers that they won’t have much say in the implementation process.  On this score, they are correct: AB 32 was a pretty amazing delegation of authority to the California Air Resources Board, with a bill that clocked in at just twelve pages, leaving the agency with wide rein to implement (compare that to the federal climate legislation back in 2009, which was over a thousand pages of legislated deal-making, rather than being a wide grant of authority to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement).

So what does the failure mean for ongoing climate efforts?  Well, at the very least, we know AB 32 authority still controls, with the state on track to meet the 2020 targets.  AB 32 also binds California to those continuing emissions levels beyond 2020, as Cara explained.  So that means we’ll have at a minimum a flat-lining of emissions after 2020.

Beyond that authority, many (if not most) of the climate measures under AB 32 come from independent legislative acts, such as renewable energy and energy efficiency mandates (both of which may be strengthened if SB 350 passes today) and SB 375 (Steinberg) on land use, many of which have goals beyond 2020.  Incentives for electric vehicles and other renewable fuel technologies will continue, along with federal efforts like the Clean Power Plan and fuel economy standards, plus tax breaks for solar and electric vehicles.

The governor has also issued an executive order that mirrors SB 32 with 2030 goals.  But these orders can be changed by future governors, and they ultimately need to be based on legislated authority that may not be there beyond 2020.

Politically speaking, legislators will get one more go at this effort next year.  Some say it’s tougher to pass in an election year, but the original AB 32 passed in an election year, and that was a non-presidential one when turnout was lower and presumably more conservative.  Maybe SB 32 backers learned some lessons for the next effort.

There’s no denying that a failure in 2016, despite other ongoing measures to tackle climate change, could be a serious setback on reducing emissions — not just here in California but worldwide, given the state’s leadership role.  But the state’s climate program will continue regardless.  And as extreme weather continues and the benefits of the existing programs are felt by more residents, the politics may improve for these efforts as well.

Big Oil Defeats California’s Petroleum Reduction Legislation, But It May Not Matter

It was a rare defeat yesterday for California’s environmental community.  After major victories in 2006 with AB 32 (to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020), 2008 with SB 375 (to reform transportation and land use planning), and in 2010 with a voter rejection of the oil industry’s attempt to roll back AB 32 (Prop 23), climate advocates were getting comfortable in the Golden State.

But the Western States Petroleum Association (aka “Big Oil”) trotted out a well-funded and dishonest ad campaign targeted at “moderate” Assembly Democrats, who gutted a provision of SB 350 that would have legislated a goal to reduce petroleum use in California by half by 2030.

John Dato pumps gas at a 76 station in West Covina, Calif.So is this a major setback for the environment and public health in California?  Well, maybe not.  If the Assembly passes and the governor signs SB 32, the state’s effort to continue the progress on AB 32 out to 2030 and 2050, the California Air Resources Board could essentially require the same petroleum reduction goals through regulation.  That agency would have broad authority to do so under SB 32, as it currently has under AB 32.  Because transportation emissions are the largest wedge in the greenhouse gas emissions pie, the agency has to tackle petroleum fuels at some level to achieve the broader legislated goals.

And the state is already well on its way to achieving those goals anyway, thanks to federal fuel economy standards, improving electric vehicle technologies, and greater renewable biofuels deployment, as NRDC points out.

But the downside is real: having these goals legislated, as opposed to being in a regulatory form pursuant to a governor’s executive order, means they would have been more certain and fixed.  Now a new administration could force changes to how the Air Resources Board regulates fuels, and Big Oil could use their influence during the regulatory process to water down or gut new rules.  Plus, they can more easily turn to the courts to challenge regulations, resulting in delays and extra costs for the agency.

So it’s definitely a loss for the environmental community, but in the long run the path that California has to take is clear.  Big Oil will see declining market share as vehicles become more efficient, people drive less, and as electric vehicles take hold.  Their victory yesterday will probably be a temporary one.

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