California Governor Jerry Brown has issued an executive order that calls for his state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.
“It’s a real test,” Brown said. “Not just for California, not just for America, but for the world. Can we rise above the parochialisms, the ethnocentric perspectives, the immediacy of I-want-I-need, to a vision, a way of life, that is sustainable?”
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The order “was intended as a jolt to a landmark 2006 environmental law requiring an 80% cut in greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, compared with 1990,” the Times reports. “The order is the latest effort by Mr. Brown to position California as a leading force in the world’s effort to address climate change—and position himself as a leader of that effort as he enters his final years in public office.”
Brown said the interim target “was essential to prod the energy industry to act and to help the state make investment and regulatory decisions that would assure that goal was not missed,” Nagourney writes.
“With this order, California sets a very high bar for itself and other states and nations, but it’s one that must be reached—for this generation and generations to come,” Brown told an environmental conference in downtown Los Angeles. “We’re sending the signals to the private economy to create, to innovate, and to make the kind of response that will enable Californians to live in compatibility with the environment.”
