California is set to spend hundreds of billions – if not trillions – of dollars over the coming decades on projects to adapt to a changing climate, deploy clean energy and upgrade aging infrastructure. It is crucial that these investments minimize their impact on natural resources and maximize high-quality conservation outcomes. Innovative conservation planning tools, […]
Final Scoping Plan identifies key role for carbon dioxide removal
Today, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) released its proposed 2022 Final Scoping Plan, providing a roadmap for how the state can achieve net-zero emissions by 2045. The Plan identifies a key role for technological carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Specifically, it identifies a need for 75 million tons of technological CDR delivered via a combination of […]
California advances toward climate goals: carbon capture and storage
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified that technologies that capture, transport and store carbon dioxide (CO2) are essential for achieving net-zero emissions targets. SB 905 (Caballero; Skinner) establishes a comprehensive framework to deploy carbon capture and storage in California. In this blog post, we review SB 905 and describe how capturing CO2 from industrial […]
California advances toward climate goals: permit streamlining
To achieve net-zero emissions by 2045, the sheer volume of new clean energy projects that must be planned, permitted, built and commissioned in only 23 years is unprecedented. AB 205 – a 2022 budget trailer bill passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor – establishes a number of landmark siting and permitting reforms […]
California advances toward climate goals: the $39 billion budget
The Legislature and Governor Newsom recently delivered a game-changing $39 billion climate budget and an important set of new policies to propel California towards its climate goals. In this blog post – the first of a three-part series – we review the central piece to the state’s recent actions: the $39 billion climate budget. We […]
Could carbon dioxide removal help California meet its climate change goals?
California has established a goal to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 or sooner, and net-negative emissions thereafter. Achieving this goal will require aggressive emissions reductions and the phase-out of fossil fuels. It is also expected that it will require some carbon dioxide removal (CDR), and the steady scale up of technologies that physically […]
Lawrence Livermore Releases Landmark Report Highlighting Pathways to Achieve Carbon Neutrality in California by 2045
On January 30th, 2020, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) released a first-of-its-kind report which identifies and quantifies the negative emissions opportunities that would enable California to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 or sooner. “Negative emissions” refers to the physical removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, such as through natural climate solutions (e.g. soil carbon […]