The Air We Breathe, Part 2

The impacts of climate change are no longer a distant threat on the horizon—they are right here, right now, with a growing intensity that is adversely affecting our communities and our environment, here in California and across the globe. The science that, decades ago, predicted the impacts we are currently experiencing is even stronger today and unambiguously tells us what we must do to limit irreversible damage: we must act with renewed commitment and focus to do more and do it sooner…

In mid-November I came across a just-released scoping plan by the California Air Resources Control Board (CARB) which was very good and thorough. It also clearly defined how CARB will lead us (California) to Carbon Neutrality by 2045. As I got well into the source document (and this paper) I looked at my word-count and saw I was well over my preferred length, and not near covering all of the plan that I needed to, thus this paper is now parts 2-and 3.

This paper is a summary of CARB’s Scoping Plan. Part 2 of this paper describes:

• High level goals of California’s greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction efforts, and methods we intend to use to achieve these goals
• The severity of climate change impacts
• Innovative steps we intend to take to control GHG

Part 3 of this paper (posted two days after Part 2) describes:

• Scenarios used to develop this plan
• Action Plans for each Sector in the Scoping Plan Scenario
• Carbon Removal and Sequestration Methods and Roles