ClimateWire quoted Near Zero’s Danny Cullenward in an article about the passage of California’s SB 32, a bill that set a new climate target for 2030, as well as carbon market auction results and the future of the state’s climate policy.
While S.B. 32 doesn’t explicitly deal with cap and trade, it does provide more support for the state’s other ongoing climate activities, observers said. Based on the authority of an executive order from Brown last year, ARB is already writing regulations to reach the 2030 target, partly by continuing existing programs and partly by establishing new limits on methane, black carbon and other “short-lived” climate pollutants (ClimateWire, Jan. 11).
“It does give us a 2030 target, and if we look at what CARB has been doing with the scoping plan process, to my reading it didn’t look as serious as it might because it wasn’t clear what the legal authority post 2020 would be,” said Danny Cullenward, a research associate at the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Read the full article, “State Assembly approves bill to extend climate targets” by Debra Kahn, on the ClimateWire website.
As the story notes, SB 32’s statewide 2030 emissions target is conditional on the California Legislature also passing a companion bill, AB 197, before the end of this month’s session. UCLA’s Ann Carlson has more on the connection over at Legal Planet.