Pressure is mounting to overhaul California’s cap-and-trade program to ensure the state will meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030. Yet the California Air Resources Board (CARB) must first update its AB 32 Climate Scoping Plan, which informs cap-and-trade and many other regulatory and incentives programs.
As that work gets underway, staff are indicating that for the first time since approving the initial plan in 2008, the agriculture sector will play a prominent role—in both reducing methane emissions and with air quality impacts to socially disadvantaged communities.
“As we shift to the framework of carbon neutrality, we have expanded the scope to include all sources, which means the emissions from natural and working lands and all [carbon] sinks,” said CARB air pollution specialist Stephanie Kato. “It is now clear that reducing emissions is not sufficient to fight climate change.”
The 2017 update to the Scoping Plan took the first steps in developing a comprehensive carbon target for natural and working lands by calculating that California should reduce emissions from this sector by 15 to 20 million metric tons of carbon per year by 2030.
The following year, then-Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order charging CARB to pursue statewide carbon neutrality by 2045. To achieve this goal, the agency has been looking into ways to increase the pace of transitioning away from fossil fuels for energy and industrial sources while also estimating the potential for minimizing emissions from natural and working lands and maximizing carbon sequestration across all land types. Now agriculture has been targeted to make a larger contribution in meeting the plan’s goals.