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California is the first state to enact a mandatory, enforcable global warming pollution cap.

For years, as scientific study after scientific study has indicted rising greenhouse gas emissions for threatening the earth’s climate system, the world watched the United States ignore policies to combat global warming. In 2006, as temperatures reached record levels, storms grew more intense, and glaciers and snowpack continued to shrink, California decided it had seen enough.

On September 27, Gov. Schwarzenegger bucked federal inaction on global warming, signing into law the nation’s first economy-wide cap on global warming pollution. At a signing ceremony in San Francisco that included British Prime Minister Tony Blair (via satellite), the governor said, “California [now] leads the way in one of the most important issues that are facing our time, which is the fight against global warming and protecting our environment.”

Specifically, the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), authored by Asm. Fran Pavley (Agoura Hills) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (Los Angeles), commits the state to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, which will result in roughly a 25 percent annual cut in pollution by 2020.

As the bill passed into law, Environment California Global Warming Advocate Jason Barbose commented, “It’s safe to say that we are entering a new era in tackling global warming. We know we need serious action on global warming and this law can make that happen in California.”

Curbing global warming will safeguard our environment, from preserving the coast, to protecting our drinking water and food supply, to conserving critical habitat for endangered species.

To achieve the 2020 goal, the law empowers the California Air Resources Board to:

• Require the largest polluters to report their greenhouse gas emissions;

• Assign reduction goals to specific industries;

• Develop a mix of measures to meet the cap including regulations and pollution trading; and

• Make sure the required reductions are actually met.

A big effort
In addition to the steadfast dedication of AB 32’s authors—Pavley and Nuñez—and the governor’s leadership in signing the bill into law, it took a highly coordinated effort from environmental and public health groups to ultimately make 2006 a year of landmark action on global warming.

Environment California played a lead role in the coalition of organizations that built support for the law across the state. Through the summer of 2006, Environment California staff advocated a strong cap on global warming pollution in meetings with lawmakers and state leaders, wrote and released four reports on global warming, sparked nearly 50 news stories, and placed ads in key newspapers across the state that reached an audience of half a million. In addition, Environment California’s citizen outreach staff had personal conversations about global warming with over 220,000 Californians. Through those interactions, 30,000 individuals signed postcards urging Gov. Schwarzenegger to make California a world leader on global warming, and an additional 18,000 sent e-mails to the governor and state lawmakers.

Next steps
With California grabbing international headlines for putting the United States on the global warming map, focus now turns to two goals. First, state leaders—with input from environmental groups—will need to make sure that the state’s unprecedented effort to reduce global warming pollution is a success. Environment California will be working in 2007 to see that Gov. Schwarzenegger fulfills the promise of AB 32 by putting in place as many common-sense solutions as possible to reduce global warming pollution right away.

The second focus is on exporting California’s landmark law to the entire country. California’s U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (Los Angeles) has sponsored a bill in Congress that would expand California’s limits on global warming pollution to the rest of the country. Environment California worked with Rep. Waxman to build support for the bill among 29 of California’s members of Congress in 2006, and will continue that effort in 2007.

“No doubt about it, 2006 was a landmark year,” said Barbose. “But really it’s just the beginning.”