Realizing California’s Environmental Goals.
This paper presents Southern California Edison’s integrated blueprint for California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants. Realizing the blueprint will reduce the threat of climate change and improve public health related to air quality. It is a systematic approach and each measure is integrated with — and depends upon — the success of the others. To be successful, California must approach implementation as an integrated package, applying resources across the board where most effective.
Climate change and air pollution pose serious threats. Climate change effects, such as sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves, are now occurring. In California, while significant progress has been made, too many communities continue to experience asthma and other air-quality-related health issues. California continues its leadership in addressing climate change and air pollution. The state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) goals call for a 40 percent reduction in GHG emissions from 1990 levels by 2030 and an 80 percent
reduction by 2050 (Figure 1). Air quality goals include a 90 percent reduction in emissions of nitrogen oxides from 2010 levels in some of the state’s most polluted areas by 2032. Meeting these ambitious clean energy and clean air goals requires fundamental changes over the next 12 years and beyond.
The electric sector is at the forefront of the fight against climate change in California and today accounts for only 19 percent of the state’s GHG emissions. The transportation sector (including fuel refining) and fossil fuels used in space and water heating now produce almost three times as many GHG emissions as the electric sector and more than 80 percent of the air pollution in California.
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