As Newsom promotes California climate in China, state greenhouse gas emissions rose last year

California needs to reduce planet-warming gases — and quickly — if it is going to meet its ambitious climate targets and stave off the worst effects of global warming.

But the amount of carbon pollution released into the atmosphere by the state’s residents actually increased last year.

Statewide carbon emissions in 2022 were slightly higher than the previous year, preliminary estimates show. The trend, while modest, moves the state further from achieving its ambitious 2030 climate goal adopted by the California Air Resources Board.

California’s target to cut statewide emissions by 48% below 1990 levels was encouraged by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has spent this week signing agreements with Chinese leaders aimed in part at exporting some of the state’s climate policies.

The governor told Politico in in Beijing that he discussed “low carbon green growth” with President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, and “that you can grow your economy as you’re decarbonizing your economy.”

Long term, California has grown its economy while decreasing emissions as the state confronts extreme wildfires, storms and drought impacts of climate change. Between 2000 and 2019, according to CARB estimates, carbon emissions fell 12.3%.

But a whopping 33% drop is needed over just seven years to meet the 2030 target and, eventually, carbon neutrality by 2045. To keep pace, California would need to cut carbon pollution by roughly 16 million tonnes per year on average.

Newsom’s posture as a national and global climate leader would likely help him in a widely speculated 2028 presidential run, but that reputation could be damaged if California fails to meet its own fast-approaching targets.

“The disconnect is going to be very visible come 2028,” said Danny Cullenward, a climate economist and vice chair of California’s independent emissions market advisory committee. “Emissions are effectively flat this year and we’re just not inside the 2030 target.”

Business-as-usual emissions estimates, he said, are indicative of a larger problem: that the Air Resources Board lacks a real implementation strategy to accomplish emissions reductions across the transportation, industrial and agricultural sectors.

“The story we are telling about what we are doing to get to our goals is very disconnected from what we are actually doing,” Cullenward added. “We need to reset and ask ‘What are all the complicated and difficult things you actually have to do?’”

Carbon emissions over the last three years don’t paint a straightforward picture. The pandemic year was a notable outlier, with California spewing 9% less carbon dioxide in 2020 when COVID-19 ceased nearly all travel.

According to the preliminary figures released during the state budget process and cap-and-trade data, greenhouse gas emissions quickly rebounded in 2021 by 4% to 384 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. And 2022 continued the trend, increasing to an estimated 386 million metric tonnes.

The Air Resources board declined an interview on the emissions figures, which the board must release as part of the state budget process. CARB spokesperson Lys Mendez said the figures will be updated later this year.

“We’re going to meet our goals,” said Alex Stack, deputy communications director for the Newsom administration. He noted that California surpassed a zero-emission truck target two years ahead of schedule.

“Governor Newsom has taken unprecedented action to get there — investing tens of billions of dollars to transition to clean energy, taking action to cut pollution, and moving us away from fossil fuels.”

What gets counted in these estimates? Research by Leehi Yona, a PhD candidate at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, showed that California omits key emission sources from its greenhouse accounting numbers — from aviation to shipping and wildfires.

“An increase in emissions is concerning in and of itself, but it’s also important to know that those emissions are underestimates to begin with,” she said. “So the fact that they’re increasing is doubly worrying, if we’re thinking about our progress as a state addressing climate change.”

Yet other climate experts are less concerned with the slight increase in state emissions. With renewable energy costs dropping in the private marketplace and mandates to compel sales of electric vehicles, they are confident the greenhouse gas numbers will fall.

The governor also recently signed a law that would require major companies to publicly disclose all their greenhouse emissions, and filed a lawsuit against major oil companies for deceiving the public on their operations’ role in causing climate change.

“There’s no question there’s going to be continuing steady reductions,” said Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis. “Whether they happen at the pace laid out by CARB will depend on how fast utilities move toward renewable energy and how fast we go to electric vehicles.”

Air Board staff first acknowledged major roadblocks to meeting the 2030 target this summer. They said relying on California’s flagship cap-and-trade program to cut emissions would drive carbon credit prices too high and carbon removal technologies won’t be available in time to make up the difference.

Alberto Ayala, executive director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, pointed to unseen impacts of policies local and statewide: SMUD’s committment to 100% carbon-free energy by 2030, adoption of electric vehicles and massive federal climate investment.

“Getting to 2030 and 2045 is going to be really hard,” Ayala said. “ Are we going to get there? I mean yeah, it’s a question. I think having some skepticism is healthy.

“If you’re looking at the emissions inventory right now, what you’re not getting is the projected reductions once all those measures begin to see significant implementation. When you do that I think you get to carbon neutrality in 2045.”