California hopes to showcase climate leadership at COP28

World leaders are gearing up for COP28, an annual U.N. local weather convention that may start this week in Dubai, and California is predicted to play a large function within the proceedings.

Representatives from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration will attend and communicate on the Golden State’s progress towards clear vitality objectives, zero-emission autos and nature-based options, officers mentioned. California may also have interaction in continued diplomacy on the subnational degree after Newsom’s current journey to China, the place he engaged in local weather talks with native leaders.

“A part of our presence in California is admittedly to make the case that subnational governments — that’s, states, provinces, cities — must have a central function on this worldwide collaboration to fight local weather change,” Wade Crowfoot, California’s pure sources secretary, informed reporters Tuesday.

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However some specialists have soured barely on the convention this 12 months, noting that Dubai is without doubt one of the world’s main oil producers and performs an outsize function in world fossil gas emissions, the primary driver of worldwide warming. The convention is being chaired by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, chief govt of Abu Dhabi Nationwide Oil Co., one of many largest oil firms on the planet.

In a 12 months anticipated to be the most popular ever recorded because of local weather change, holding the convention within the Dubai sends blended alerts, mentioned Cara Horowitz, govt director of the Emmett Institute on Local weather Change and the Atmosphere at UCLA, who will probably be attending the proceedings.

“This convention will probably be an particularly difficult one for making actual progress,” Horowitz mentioned, not solely due to Al Jaber’s function but additionally as a result of this 12 months’s agenda gives few alternatives for brand spanking new breakthrough agreements such because the Paris local weather settlement, which was established eight years in the past at COP21.

The electrical automobile sharing program at Rancho San Pedro was created in September 2020 and has attracted 39 customers. This system is backed by the Zero Emissions Mobility and Neighborhood Pilot Undertaking Fund, which is launching 4 zero-emission mobility pilots round Los Angeles County this 12 months.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Instances)

The Paris settlement seeks to restrict world warming to 1.5 levels Celsius above preindustrial ranges and no increased than 2 levels — a benchmark that was handed for the primary time this month.

“I doubt that this COP goes to transform our method to fixing the issue, however hopefully it can add to incremental progress that enables us to see a approach ahead,” Horowitz mentioned. “That’s deeply unsatisfying to me and to many others, nevertheless it’s a bit laborious to determine how else one would go about tackling an issue of this dimension apart from by bringing collectively the world’s main specialists, and the world’s most passionate advocates and policymakers, to create an area for change.”

Certainly, California officers have been emphatic that the state can get work carried out in Dubai. As one of many world’s largest economies, California is already a worldwide chief in local weather coverage and has made nice strides towards decarbonization, with the present aim of reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.

The state has additionally dedicated to transitioning to electrical autos with a ban on new gasoline automobile gross sales slated to take impact in 2035. Presently, 27% of latest automobile gross sales within the state are zero-emission autos, up from 5% when Newsom took workplace.

However extra collaboration will probably be wanted to achieve higher objectives, mentioned Lauren Sanchez, Newsom’s senior local weather advisor.

“We might be net-zero tomorrow … however we might nonetheless want motion from the world’s largest emitters, massive nations and different nation states, to be able to really bend the curve of carbon emissions and maintain Californians protected,” Sanchez mentioned. “An enormous a part of the diplomacy that we’ll be participating in, as a subnational, is to share every part California has been engaged on and to proceed studying from others.”

Among the many work California will probably be touting is its substantial investments in renewable vitality. About 60% of the state’s energy now comes from clear vitality sources, mentioned David Hochschild, chair of the California Vitality Fee. That features a 2,000% enhance in solar energy over the past decade and a 3,500% enhance in vitality storage over the past 4 years, making California the most important and fastest-growing vitality storage market on the planet, he mentioned.

At COP28, the state plans to affix the World Offshore Wind Alliance, a world consortium that seeks to attain 2,000 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2050, with 25 gigawatts coming from California, Hochschild mentioned.

However vitality is only one of California’s choices at COP28, formally known as the twenty eighth Convention of the Events to the U.N. Framework Conference on Local weather Change. The state is planning shows on its wholesome soils program and on nature-based local weather options, together with habitat restoration work and the “30 by 30” plan to preserve 30% of the state’s lands and coastal waters by 2030. For the primary time, California may also ship its tribal affairs secretary, Christina Snider-Ashtari, to the convention.

“That is really the primary level in historical past the place globally, nationwide and subnational governments have acknowledged the significance of Indigenous voices on this house, understanding too that Indigenous peoples are disproportionately impacted by the impacts of local weather change,” Snider-Ashtari mentioned.

Horowitz, of UCLA, mentioned different states and nations are listening and following California’s lead. She mentioned she has been happy by the state’s presence and authority at COP gatherings previously.

“California’s affect in world local weather policymaking is actual,” Horowitz mentioned. “California continued to develop its financial system because it shrank its greenhouse gasoline emissions, and in doing so, it serves as a mannequin for the world that that is attainable.”

However the state additionally has classes to be taught at COP28 and will probably be launching a world local weather partnership targeted on decreasing methane emissions. Methane is a short-lived greenhouse gasoline that lasts a couple of dozen years within the ambiance however traps 80 occasions extra warmth than carbon dioxide.

Electrical college buses sit idle as a result of battery chargers usually are not but purposeful at Lassen Excessive College on Sept. 26, 2023, in Susanville, Calif.

(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Instances)

“We will probably be considerably increasing our collaborations on this house and actually sharing data and techniques and understanding how knowledge may also help us deal with the issue of methane,” mentioned Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Assets Board.

The state may also launch a world local weather partnership amongst subnational jurisdictions with related Mediterranean climates and can take part in a neighborhood local weather motion summit.

“We’ll be lifting up what we’re doing in California on wildfires, drought, floods, excessive warmth, sea degree rise, but additionally creating and saying collaborations with different governments the world over which might be engaged on these points as nicely,” Crowfoot mentioned.

He added that he’s wanting ahead to the outcomes of a “world stocktake” that may happen in Dubai — a listing of local weather progress that he and different officers hoped will immediate nations to replace their local weather targets to be extra bold.

However at the same time as California seems to function a world local weather mannequin, the state can be grappling with its function as an oil producer and shopper. Sanchez mentioned the state will attend COP28 “with quite a lot of humility” as it really works to rework the way it produces and consumes vitality.

The USA too shouldn’t be with out reproach, because it continues to supply and devour extra oil than every other nation. Simply weeks in the past, the Biden administration launched the nation’s Fifth Nationwide Local weather Evaluation, a sobering report that confirmed the nation and the world are removed from assembly local weather objectives.

President Biden’s landmark local weather invoice, the Inflation Discount Act, obtained appreciable approval for its environmental plans and targets. However whereas worldwide figures comparable to Pope Francis and King Charles III are slated to attend the convention in Dubai, Biden has opted to skip this 12 months’s proceedings and ship U.S. local weather envoy John Kerry and different officers in his place.

Regardless of the controversies surrounding this 12 months’s COP, Horowitz mentioned she is optimistic that the state and the nation can draw worth from the occasion.

“Usually it’s states and cities and counties who’re making nitty-gritty selections about easy methods to run their transit, and what to do with their waste, and what electrical energy provides to buy,” she mentioned. “And it’s these varieties of selections that actually make an enormous distinction when aggregated globally, and that’s why cooperative efforts amongst native jurisdictions actually matter.”

In lots of circumstances, she added, it’s the facet dialog amongst states and provinces — versus the high-level negotiations amongst nations — “the place the true work of attaining local weather emission reductions occurs.”