As California Emissions Climb From Power Generation, California’s Climate Targets Could Slip Out of Reach
th annual
This year’s
Index finds that 2018 greenhouse gas emissions—the latest year for which data are available—rose overall for the first time since 2012, driven in part by increases in the power and commercial sectors. Data from the report illustrate that California now must reduce emissions by an average of 4.9 percent each year from 2020 to 2030 to cut emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, as mandated by SB 32. The largest one-year emissions drop California has ever achieved was at the height of the Great Recession in 2009, when climate pollution fell 6.1 percent. While 2020 may see a similar emissions drop, the state has never cut emissions more than 2.6 percent in a year while not experiencing an economic downturn since California passed AB 32 in 2006. Now the state must double that each year. In this way, the 2020