LOS ANGELES — Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order Wednesday dramatically ramping up the state’s already ambitious program aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, saying it was critical to address “an ever-growing threat” posed by global warming to the state’s economy and well being.
Under Brown’s order, by 2030, emission levels would have to be reduced by 40 percent compared with 1990. Under existing state law, emissions are supposed to be cut 80 percent over what they were in 1990 by 2050, and Brown said this tough new interim target was essential to helping the state make investment and regulatory decisions that would assure that goal was reached.
Brown faulted Republicans in Congress for “pooh-poohing” the threat of global warming. He said that he wanted California to set an example for the rest of the country and the world on the urgency of responding to what he described as a slow-moving crisis.
“It’s a real test,” Brown, a Democrat, said in a speech at an environmental conference in downtown Los Angeles. “Not just for California, not just for America, but for the world. Can we rise above the parochialisms, the ethnocentric perspectives, the immediacy of I-want-I-need, to a vision, a way of life, that is sustainable?”
Brown’s order marks an aggressive turn in what already was one of the toughest programs in the nation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Under the law put into place by Brown’s predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state was required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 on the way to reach the 2050 target; California is already well on its way to meeting the 2020 goal, and may exceed it.
“With this order, California sets a very high bar for itself and other states and nations, but it’s one that must be reached — for this generation and generations to come,” Brown said.
The order marks the latest effort by Brown to position California as a leading force in the world’s effort to address climate change — and himself as a leader of that campaign effort as he faces his final years in public office. In his State of the State address in January, the governor called for reducing gas consumption from cars and trucks by up to 50 percent over the next 15 years.
“Climate change poses an ever-growing threat to the well-being, public health, natural resources, economy, and the environment of California, including loss of snowpack, drought, sea level rise, more frequent and intense wildfires, heat waves, more severe smog, and harm to natural and working lands, and these effects are already being felt in the state,” Brown said.
The governor’s speech, coming at a time when he has been trying to rally the state behind tough water conservation measures, was a reminder of the often conflicting demands of these twin challenges. Some of the central efforts proposed to alleviate the drought are highly energy intensive.
The governor’s order did not give details of how the state would reach the new goals, though Brown in his speech here noted the success of the auto and energy industry so far in meeting the emission targets that the state has set over the years. He disputed the argument that such efforts would increase the cost of doing business in California.
“We’re sending the signals to the private economy to create, to innovate, and to make the kind of response that will enable Californians to live in compatibility with the environment,” he said. “We can do it.”