The California Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to approve the state's cap-and-trade plan, the keystone of its effort to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 under A.B. 32 and the nation's first economywide, market-based greenhouse gas scheme in the absence of federal action. California has the world's eighth-largest economy and the highest gross state product in the United States, at $1.7 trillion in 2009.
"It just shows to you that a huge majority of Californians are big believers in A.B. 32," Schwarzenegger said. "And they're big believers not just in global climate change -- let's be honest, not everyone believes in that. It's also about our health. It is about 19,000 people that die every year because of pollution-related illnesses. Every sixth child in the Central Valley goes to school with an inhaler. We can do much better than that."
2 comments:
And how much of California's $1.7 trillion economy will be blown to the winds by AB 32?
And dear ex-gov. S., I do not believe AB 32 will do a thing for air pollution in the CV or anywhere else. It will on the other hand divert a vasts sum of money away from helping "...every sixth child in CV...".
The potential costs of implementing AB32 pale beside the cost of doing nothing.
The California Air Resources Board states that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing between five (5) and twenty (20) percent of GDP each year, now and forever.
In contrast, the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to less than one percent of GDP each year.
The benefits of AB32 range from cleaner air, improved health and lower health care costs, lower dependence on foreign fuel, improved national security and between $400 and $500 lower annual energy costs per household.
"California is particularly vulnerable to the costs associated with unmitigated climate change. A warming California climate would generate more smoggy days by contributing to ozone formation while also fostering more large brush and forest fires.
Continued increases in global emissions at business-as-usual rates would result in California losing 90 percent of the Sierra snow pack, sea level rising by more than 20 inches, and heat wave days increasing three- to four-fold by late in the century.
These impacts will translate into real costs to California. A 12-inch sea level rise by 2050 would translate into $1.2 billion in levee improvements needed in the San Francisco Bay Delta and the San Joaquin Valley.
Water supply costs due to scarcity and increased operating costs would increase by as much as $689 million per year by 2050.
Due to snow pack loss, California’s winter sports businesses would shrink by $1.4 billion annually by 2050, and lose 14,500 jobs, and many other sectors of California’s economy would suffer.
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