In the Harvard Law Review Forum, Professor Ann Carlson explains how a focus on California can help President Obama to fulfill his pledge to combat climate change through executive action. Professors Richard Lazarus and Michael Gerrard also contributed reaction pieces on the President's pledge.
Faculty and researchers at the Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment, UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and the law school's Evan Frankel Environmental Law and Policy Program have crafted the first comprehensive environmental sustainability plan for the city of Los Angeles. Vision 2021 LA addresses all the major impacts the city has on the environment — from energy, air and water to environmental justice and the green economy. It contains 11 target areas, 24 goals and hundreds of benchmarks to ensure accountability.
Long term, mass consumer adoption of electric vehicles will help California meet its renewable energy and greenhouse gas goals while boosting the economy with domestically produced fuel (in the form of electricity) and sales from California-based electric vehicle companies and suppliers.
Key policy recommendations: Industry and policy-maker coordinated education and outreach campaign about the consumer benefits of electric vehicle technology, reduced taxes and fees to lower the upfront cost of the vehicles, and a well-planned and coordinate public charging infrastructure.
In August 2011, the Emmett Center examined California's proposed cap-and-trade program. In this two-page recap, we review the program as adopted and find our conclusions still apply: the California Air Resources Board has designed a cap-and-trade program that should avoid gaming and market manipulation problems sometimes seen in other programs.
The Emmett Center partners with NRDC on a new study analyzing the benefits of smart roofing options for Southern California. Looking Up concludes that green roofs and cool roofs would save energy and money, reduce global warming pollution, and relieve stress on California’s limited fresh water supply. Coauthored by Cara Horowitz, the study quantifies these benefits and makes policy recommendations for promoting smart roofs.
Under SB 226, qualifying infill projects can avoid environmental review of impacts that were addressed in prior, program-level analysis or where local development standards already mitigate them. Project proponents can also analyze environmental impacts specific to the project through a more streamlined CEQA process.
California’s landmark cap-and-trade program for controlling greenhouse gases (GHGs) gets underway this year, with the state’s first public auction slated for November 2012. The state faces crucial questions about how to spend proceeds from its cap-and-trade auctions. Although the auctions are not primarily aimed at generating revenue, the amounts of money at stake are significant, with projections on the order of a billion dollars in the program’s first year and more as the program expands.
Approximately 27 trillion pounds of chemicals are produced or imported into the United States every year, more than one trillion of them in California alone. In the face of relative inaction at the federal level, state governments have moved to address hazardous chemical use. Our third Pritzker Brief evaluates California's green chemistry legislation (AB 1879).
California will need to steer the development of large-scale renewable energy facilities on agricultural land toward lands that do not deplete the state's prime agricultural and biological resources. Key policy recommendations contained in the report include the development of criteria for the most suitable agricultural lands for renewable energy deployment, expedited environmental review and endangered species permitting for projects on these lands, and coordinated state and local land use planning and transmission investments to encourage development on these sites.
Pritzker Brief No. 2 | October 2011