Policy action on global warming

In 2006, the California Legislature approved Assembly Bill 32, a comprehensive approach to addressing climate change in California. By requiring in law a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, California set the stage for its transition to a clean energy future. This historic step helped put climate change on the national agenda, and has spurred action by many other states.

The California Air Resources Board is the lead agency for implementing AB 32. In June of 2008, the Board released a draft scoping plan that Audubon California and others hailed as an aggressive, yet realistic, plan for getting the state’s emissions down to 1990 levels. This plan accepts that in order to fully address the problem of global warming, we must seek change throughout the state’s economy.

Audubon California has formed a coalition with The Nature Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife to advocate not only for the continued protection of birds, wildlife, and habitat, but also to make lawmakers aware of how our state’s great natural resources can play a critical role in our efforts to reduce emissions.

As the Air Resources Board holds a number of scoping meetings throughout the state, leading to its ultimate decision on its implementation plan this fall, this coalition is communicating the following:

• That the Board has done an excellent job developing the first comprehensive plan to address climate change.
• Given the lack of progress at the federal level, this plan is critically important and globally significant.
• We are pleased that the Board has responded positively to the coalition’s recommendations which included:
• Providing for a strong, cost-effective cap on emissions and a market-based program designed to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that ensures the well-being of human communities and ecosystems.
• Incorporating a robust role for forests and other land-based systems by reducing emissions from the loss of forestland and by enhancing land-based carbon capture through inclusion of forest compliance credits (offsets) that are verifiable, additional and permanent in the trading program.
• Dedicated funding for projects and programs to help plants and animals and natural communities and the people who depend on healthy ecosystems adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.
• The scoping plan integrates the needs of nature in several ways, in that it has an expansive role for forests and other natural resources, and it creates the potential for funding for climate change adaptation for plants, animals, and humans.
• The Board will need to develop the details in the final plan to fully take advantage of the natural ability of forests and habitats to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and to ensure that people, animals, and plants can survive the unavoidable impacts of climate change.