THE NET-ZERO BLOG
Climate policy analysis and updates from Sacramento
California needs to expand its clean energy. And it starts by expanding its grid
California’s 2022 Scoping Plan identified the unprecedented amount of new clean energy needed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, including developing a 20 GW offshore wind industry from scratch and more than tripling the state’s utility-scale solar capacity. How can the state deliver on these major ambitions? In this blog post we highlight the essential role of transmission to enable California’s clean energy deployment goals.
How California can lead the world in decarbonizing aviation
As the United States seeks to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize will be aviation. Aviation makes up nearly 7% of the total U.S. transportation sector emissions. As planes are expected to remain reliant on liquid fuels for the foreseeable future, commercializing non-fossil, low-carbon alternatives is a critical need. In this blog post, we explore opportunities and recommendations for California to lead on sustainable aviation fuel development.
Op-ed: How forest thinning waste could fund California wildfire prevention
Op-ed announcement: CSG’s Director of Climate and Energy Policy, Sam Uden in partnership with the Sierra Business Council, had an op-ed published in CalMatters that describes how a forest products strategy could help reduce megafires in California.
CARB's opportunity on low-carbon fuels
The California Air Resources Board will soon initiate a series of regulatory proceedings on different programs to cement the ambitions of the 2022 Scoping Plan into state policy. One of the first – and perhaps the most consequential – will be the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. In this blog post, we highlight gaps in the upcoming LCFS rulemaking.
Final Scoping Plan identifies key role for carbon dioxide removal
Today, the California Air Resources Board 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, including direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.
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 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 and bioenergy point sources as well as directly from the air can help California achieve its climate goals. This blog post is the final instalment of our three-part review of California’s 2022 legislative session on climate and clean energy.