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The majority of green jobs in solar are construction jobs, that is, installing systems. A 2016 report from UC Berkeley’s Labor Center by Betony Jones, Peter Philips and Carol Zabin analyzes differences between construction jobs in the utility-scale segment of the renewable energy industry and jobs in the rooftop solar industry. The study finds that in California most workers in the utility-scale segment earn wages and benefits, and receive training that can sustain a middle class lifestyle. The report attributes this to the fact that utility-scale projects in California employ workers who belong to labor unions or receive equivalent wages and benefits to union members.

Jobs in rooftop solar, on the other hand, pay lower wages and offer more limited benefits. The Solar Foundation jobs report shows that most solar installers (69%) work on these lower paid residential and commercial distributed solar projects, not on the higher wage utility-scale projects.

Economic conditions might be another factor. Even though the recovery has been stronger in California than in the rest of the country, Borenstein said business activities – and the resulting carbon emissions – are lower than regulators assumed when they started pulling together regulations a decade ago.

Since January 1, 2016, over 300 “convenience zone” (CZ) recycling centers—those generally located within a half mile of supermarkets—have closed. CZ recycling centers are an important part of California’s Beverage Container Recycling Program (BCRP). They provide a convenient location for consumers to recycle beverage containers and have their deposit—the California Redemption Value, or “CRV”—repaid.

Cities and counties from Portland, Maine, to Los Angeles have successfully passed local minimum-wage increases, but recent resistance in seemingly friendly territory suggests a momentum shift. . . Lawmakers in several other states also are pushing back against local minimum-wage increases. At least four municipalities in Cook County, Ill., have opted out of the county government’s move to raise the minimum wage in the Chicago suburbs to $13 an hour by 2020. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican, approved legislation in March to roll back higher minimum wages already approved in four counties. In Flagstaff, Ariz., council members just amended a minimum-wage increase approved by voters in November to slow the pace of increases.

Amid an abrupt slowdown in growth, nearly 4,000 food-service jobs may have been cut or not created throughout San Diego County from the beginning of 2016 through February of this year, according to an analysis of federal payroll data by Lynn Reaser, chief economist of the Fermanian Business & Economic Institute at Point Loma Nazarene University.

Reservoirs and rivers are overflowing as storms have pounded California this winter, and after years of drought that should be good news. The problem is that misguided environmentalism is wasting the water windfall and failing to store it for a non-rainy day.

At least 3,119 polluters have faked emissions data and even resisted checks from environmental inspectors, the ministry of environment said, summarizing its latest efforts to tackle the smog that often shrouds the north of the country. Many local governments still “don’t act, or act blindly” to clean up air pollution, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said a statement published on its website.

But the projected rise in hydropower could force the state to sharply cut back on the amount of power produced from other sources, particularly renewable energy, according to the California Independent System Operator, the organization that manages most of the state’s vast energy system. The system operator forecasts on some days it will have to block between 6,000 and 8,000 megawatts of electricity from the grid as a result of the profusion of hydropower. That’s the equivalent output of six to eight nuclear reactors.

An ambitious proposal to create a single statewide insurance plan for every Californian — including undocumented residents, seniors on Medicare and people who now get their health coverage through work — began to take shape on Thursday when two legislators released details about what services would be covered and who would run the giant program. Still missing, however, are the details that have bedeviled universal health care advocates for decades: how much it would cost taxpayers. And the plan will be difficult, if not impossible, to execute without permission from Washington to steer billions of federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars into a trust fund that covers everyone.

China and the European Union need to show joint leadership on climate change and cannot expect the “same leadership” from the new administration in the United States, European climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said in Beijing on Thursday.

Sweden, Germany and France are the only European countries pursuing environmental policies in line with promises made at the Paris climate conference, according to a new ranking study. . . “EU politicians portraying themselves as climate leaders should put their money where their mouth is by closing loopholes in the EU’s key climate law and pushing for more ambition,” said Femke de Jong, the EU policy director for Carbon Market Watch, a campaign group that co-drafted the EU Climate Leadership Board survey.

Canada probably will fail to meet its international commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under even the best-case scenario, according to a new report by the Canadian government. The country, which continues to expand oil and gas production in Alberta’s oil sands despite its stated ambitions to curtail emissions, will make little to no progress towards ambitious emissions reductions targets pledged in December 2015 under the Paris agreement. That’s the conclusion of a report published earlier this month by Environment and Climate Change, a federal agency tasked with reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Many measures track some form of business optimism, and generally reveal the same trends. But the RSM Index has a novel twist: a new set of questions that track how that optimism is tied up in expectations that President Donald Trump will be able to change the business environment for U.S. firms. The surge in business optimism largely owes to hopes that regulations and taxes will decrease, and that the federal government could invest heavily in the nation’s infrastructure. These views have come in for criticism from those wondering if the new administration will be able to execute on all of its goals. But businesses are already building in different expectations about how much will be accomplished in Washington in coming years.

“Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions rose last year, according to a new report. CO2 levels rose by 4 million tons in 2016 (0.7 percent), which means Berlin will have to reduce those levels by 40 million tons over the next three years in order to meet the country’s 2020 climate targets. As the FT reports, the country’s opposition Green party (who sponsored the study) is blaming an increase in vehicle miles traveled for the emissions increase . . . The Greens also blamed a pick-up in oil consumption, driven by an expanding economy: German gross domestic product rose 1.9 per cent last year, its fastest pace in five years. They said higher consumption of diesel was also a factor. Imagine that, Greens inveighing against economic progress. If you need a reminder of how politically toxic and counterproductive environmental dogma can be, look no further than this example.”

With GDP growth of 2.6% and the overall carbon intensity of the economy (CO2/GDP) declining by about 5.2%, energy-related CO2 declined by 2.7%.