California climate regulators on Thursday approved a detailed plan for the state to meet its 2030 carbon reduction goals.
The effort, known formally as the “scoping plan,” details the state’s strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels over the next 13 years as a way to fight climate change.
Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, called the plan “a visionary look at the longer term and deeper kinds of transformations that we’ll need to stabilize our climate.”
“This is a major step forward,” she said.
To meet the 2030 goals, which were approved by the state Legislature in 2016, regulators plan to rely on implementing goals set in other recently passed legislation, including:
- Generating half the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
- Cutting methane and other highly polluting emissions.
- Improving air quality.
- Reducing the amount of carbon in gasoline.
- Increasing the sustainability of trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles.
- Boosting housing development near job centers and transit to reduce driving.
- Continuing cap and trade, the market-based program requiring polluters to pay for their emissions.