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Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California has set a goal of eliminating electricity generated from fossil fuels by 2045, under legislation signed on Monday by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Brown, who has positioned California as a global leader in the fight against greenhouse gas emissions, endorsed the move by staging Wednesday in San Francisco a summit of world leaders in climate change.
The measure represents the latest in a series of ambitious environmental initiatives as California seeks to fill the void left by President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and its efforts to boost the industry. coal.
The state is working to rapidly expand the adoption of electric vehicles and has created a "cap and trade" program to set the price of carbon emissions, creating incentives to reduce them. It's about achieving a goal, pushed by Brown and passed by lawmakers, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% over the next 12 years.
But efforts have been criticized by business groups worried about rising electricity bills. Some environmentalists who say Brown is too confident with the oil and gas interests are planning to disrupt the San Francisco summit.
Measuring renewable energy would require California utilities to produce 60% of their energy from wind, solar and other renewable sources by 2030. That's 10% more than the current mandate.
The goal would then be to use only carbon-free sources to produce electricity by 2045. It is simply an objective, without a mandate or sanction for not having succeeded.
"It will not be easy and will not be immediate, but it must be done," said Brown. "California is committed to doing all that is necessary to address the existential threat of climate change."
California's renewable energy target is not as ambitious as Hawaii's, which has adopted a 100% renewable energy mandate.
The phasing out of fossil fuels would be a massive shift in the energy network. Utilities depend on natural gas power plants to meet demand when renewable energy is low, especially in the early evening when the sun goes down and people turn on their air conditioners when they return from work.
Utilities already face an abundance of solar energy during peak periods, which must be discharged to other states when local demand for electricity is insufficient.
Renewable energy experts have been looking at batteries that can store the solar energy produced in the afternoon, but the technology is not ready for large-scale deployment. Another potential solution is pumped storage, in which water is pumped in the afternoon using solar energy and released by hydroelectric generators after sunset.
Brown has often been criticized for being lenient with the oil industry, including environmental groups pushing him to create a moratorium on the state's new oil and gas wells. California has nearly 54,000 active wells, some of them close to the urbanized areas of Southern California and the Central Valley, according to state data.
California ranked sixth in the state in crude oil production in May, the latest data available from the US Energy Information Administration. The state ranks 15th in the production of natural gas. Its crude oil production has declined steadily since the mid-1980s.
Business groups also opposed the measure, fearing that it would raise the price of energy and, along with California's other environmental and labor protection measures, complicate competition from companies in other states.
"If we want to have these first national laws, we want to see the first benefits at the national level," said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable.
The measure was drafted by Senator Kevin de Leon, a Democrat from Los Angeles who comes to the US Senate against his American Democratic counterpart Dianne Feinstein.
"Today, we are building a marker that future generations will remember," de Leon said.
California has achieved its goal of reducing total greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels, a move that is largely driven by the implementation of cleaner energy plans.
But electricity accounts for only 16% of California's emissions. Further reduction of carbon emissions will require a significant reduction in vehicle emissions, which have recently increased.
After signing the bill on Monday, Brown also signed a decree ordering the state to achieve "carbon neutrality" no later than 2045. After that, he said the state should issue net emissions negative greenhouse gases.
The ordinance directs several public bodies to set targets to artificially remove carbon dioxide from the air through a process called "sequestration".
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