Memo to Gov. Gavin Newsom: California can’t economize on fighting climate change | Opinion

The climate crisis does not care about California’s $31.5 billion budget deficit.

But in order to meet that financial shortfall, Gov. Gavin Newsom made significant reductions to climate investments after announcing the state budget in January. Those cuts included taking away more than $1 billion in clean energy funding, more than $1 billion from the state’s zero-emission vehicle incentive programs, and $2 billion from clean transportation like transit, walking and biking funds. In all, Newsom pruned $6 billion from California’s climate agenda.

State environmental groups were livid, and rightfully so. Last year, California legislators and Newsom were praised for being courageous on climate change after failing to pass serious climate change legislation in the previous three years.

But this year? Newsom seems to believe that a challenging budget cycle means California can economize on climate legislation when it absolutely can’t.

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California has already had to declare four separate states of emergency this year due to climate-related disasters and it’s only May. The Central Valley has flooded this spring, and the ever-threatening wildfires are yet to come this summer and autumn.

The governor’s May revision of the budget returned some money to climate investments, but not enough.

“We appreciate that Gov. Newsom is striving to avoid additional cuts to climate priorities, especially as California continues to face difficult financial circumstances,” said Katelyn Roedner Sutter, California State Director of the Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement. “But unlike the governor’s investment proposal, the impacts of climate (change) cannot be delayed to future years.”

The climate crisis requires an ongoing investment that cannot be halted or delayed by a lack of funds. California cannot afford to take a year off from creating legislation to reverse the effects of climate change.

Dozens of environmental and consumer groups have jointly called on Gov. Newsom to cut fossil fuel subsidies, which would pour several billion back into the state’s coffers.

Among them is a subsidy of $5 billion to refund a tax expenditure called “Water’s Edge Election” for multinational companies who owe taxes to the state; $3 billion to the “Research and Development Credit,” wherein any California-based corporation is allowed a credit for research expenditures; $495 million for the “Exemption for Manufacturing and Research and Development Equipment” that specifically benefits the oil and gas industry; and $90 million for a subsidy that allows corporations to deduct research and experimental costs.

“To me, it seems like not even a question,” said Mary Creasman, CEO of California Environmental Voters. “Are we going to subsidize corporate polluters? Or are we going to invest in protecting communities who had three emergency declarations in the first three months of the year because of the climate crisis? Obviously, we didn’t solve it in 2022.”

The state’s climate goals are ambitious. Legislation signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018 seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions over a series of deadlines through 2045.

The state exceeded its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 by but it is simply not on track to meet future deadlines: California must reduce emissions to 40% of 1990 levels by the year 2030, and by 85% of 1990 levels by the year 2045, and the California Air Resource Board must update its plan to meet those goals every five years.

A recent report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office claimed CARB’s latest update lacked a “clear strategy,” and wrote that “emissions would need to decline much faster in order to meet the 2030 and 2045 targets.”

“We’re in a place now where we set targets, (but) we’re not meeting them. And the reason we’re not meeting them is because we’re not investing in the implementation it will take to meet them,” Creasman said. “We can’t take our foot off the pedal. We have to continue to do big things every single year until 2030, that’s what science tells us.”

The effects of climate change — 116-degree days, unprecedented wildfires, floods, landslides — already mark the seasons in California. The time to reverse the effects of greenhouse gasses is finite.

Science doesn’t care about politics.