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Climate Change

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California has set some of the world’s most aggressive climate and clean-energy policies. We investigate how successful these policies are and how they affect Californians.

Climate Change
California ponders expanding cap and trade to Brazil
With feathers adorning his head and red paint decorating his face, Haru Kuntanawa hardly looked like a potential business partner for California’s oil industry when he addressed the crowd gathered last week in a Sacramento conference room. But under a plan state air regulators are considering, industries that emit greenhouse gas pollution in California could […]
By • May 4, 2016
Climate Change
A pivotal race for California Democrats
Can a Democrat cross environmentalists and labor unions and still keep her seat in the California Legislature? Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-San Bernardino) is putting that question to the test. After two terms in the statehouse, Brown is facing a challenge from the left as she runs for re-election. Environmentalists and union leaders unhappy with Brown’s […]
By • March 30, 2016
Climate Change
California will rate big energy users
State officials recently added a new piece to the patchwork quilt that is California energy policy:  a mechanism for easily—and publicly—tracking how non-residential buildings use energy. The details aren’t worked out yet under a law that took effect three months ago. But such programs are already in place in San Francisco and a smattering of other […]
By • March 29, 2016
Climate Change
How is California doing on climate change?
A panel of energy experts gave mostly passing marks to California’s landmark climate change law, but raised concerns about the cost of implementing additional, more stringent, measures. In a spirited but cordial debate Thursday night in Bakersfield, lawmakers, regulators and advocates explored the state of play in the decade since the passage of AB32, the […]
By • March 4, 2016
Climate Change
Oil gears up for another climate fight
A Harvard economist known globally for his work on climate change policy sat in the Sacramento office of the oil industry’s lobbying firm recently, making the case that California is fighting global warming the wrong way. The state has a good cap and trade system, Robert Stavins said, but some of its other environmental policies […]
By • March 2, 2016
Climate Change
California, a climate model for the world, has work to do at home
When Gov. Jerry Brown arrives in Paris next week for a major international conference on climate change, he will showcase one of the world’s most sweeping programs to cut greenhouse gas emissions. California has perhaps the most comprehensive cap-and-trade program in the world, setting a limit and a price for pollution from factories, utilities and […]
By • November 19, 2015
Climate Change
On Ramp – California’s Climate Change Plan
What is California’s Climate Change Plan? For decades, California has been a leader on environmental and climate change policies, including the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate in 1990 and a “Clean Car” bill in 2002 that became a model for the National Fuel Efficiency Standards that President Obama announced in 2012. The California Air Resources Board […]
By • October 20, 2015
Climate Change
What’s left of California’s Climate Change policy? A lot.
The Legislature may have scuttled the centerpiece of Gov. Jerry Brown’s climate change plans, but it still approved ambitious new environmental policies that will impact the economy and life of Californians. In coming years, the new legislation means California’s homes and buildings are expected to use dramatically less electricity and the power grid will increase […]
By • September 17, 2015
Climate Change
California considers sweeping proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions
Some of the world’s most ambitious climate change legislation is currently under consideration in America. But the lawmakers in question aren’t in D.C. — they’re in Sacramento. California lawmakers are intensely debating far-reaching goals to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The bill contains three proposals: one to double energy efficiency in buildings, one to derive 50 […]
By • September 9, 2015
california emissions trump EV
Climate Change
Ad blitz heats up climate change fight
The oil industry helped Democrat Jim Cooper win his first election to the Legislature last year. Now it’s seeking his help fighting Democratic leaders in the state Capitol. Cooper is one of a handful of potential swing votes the oil industry is targeting as it tries to kill a controversial proposal to cut in half […]
By • August 20, 2015

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