Includes Seven Key Policy Areas to Achieve Climate Stability in California and Advance Economic, Racial, and Gender Justice
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Annette Majerowicz, 847-977-4434, annette@fcpcommunications.com
SACRAMENTO, CA – California Environmental Voters (EnviroVoters) Education Fund today released a new policy roadmap with a clear and comprehensive vision for California to address the climate crisis and begin to repair damage already done by decades of climate inaction.
“Californians are already dealing with the impacts of the climate crisis, including intense wildfires, air pollution, a lack of clean drinking water, and extreme heat,” said Mary Creasman, Chief Executive Officer of California Environmental Voters Education Fund. ”The roadmap lays out the comprehensive policies we need to address this crisis. We have the solutions to fight climate change, now we need the political will to get it done. Our state has no time to waste.”
Scientists have made clear that we only have until 2030 to prevent the most severe impacts of the climate crisis. To create the policy roadmap, California Environmental Voters Education Fund consulted with experts in environmental advocacy, environmental justice, workforce development, and the public and private sectors to identify a set of policies and solutions that must be enacted before the 2030 deadline. The release of the policy roadmap also coincides with the launch of a new website for the Education Fund. Californians can use the new site to learn more about how we are building power to solve the climate crisis through our work in redistricting, organizing to build the infrastructure and power for a clean energy future, developing policy and educating legislators, and more.
While California has a global reputation and track-record of progressive environmental policy, the Golden State is not moving at the rate and scale mandated by the scientific community to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. The longer leaders wait to implement solutions to prevent climate change, the harder and more expensive these problems become to solve. In the meantime, vulnerable, low income, and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities continue to suffer the highest burdens of our pollution-based economy.
The seven areas that the policy roadmap address include the following:
- Clean Energy Economy: California must rapidly accelerate its transition to clean energy and away from its reliance on fossil fuels, including an immediate investment in scaling up affordable, clean, and reliable energy resources.
- Job Creation and Workforce Standards: California must continue to advance policies and programs that support the transition to a clean energy economy while simultaneously creating new opportunities for family-sustaining jobs.
- Transportation and Land Use: The transportation sector continues to be the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in California; the state needs to recenter investments in active and public transportation, rapidly scale up adoption of zero emission trucks and vehicles, and repair past harms perpetuated by poor transportation and land use planning decisions.
- Eliminating Toxics and Pollution: California must address the fact that most highly polluting industrial facilities in CA do not have health and safety buffer zones around them and are not held responsible for the public health risks they pose to surrounding communities. The state must also address challenges around waste reduction, management, and recycling.
- Sustainable Agriculture: The agriculture industry provides incredible potential to achieve carbon neutrality statewide while also increasing biodiversity and improving air quality; with adequate financial, technical, and research investments alongside regulations that promote health and equity, California can move agriculture towards carbon neutrality by 2030 and carbon-negative by 2035.
- Natural Resources and Climate Resiliency: We must strategically employ nature-based solutions and sustainable land use practices to drastically increase carbon sequestration, mitigate the unavoidable effects of climate change, protect and prioritize public health, and increase climate resiliency of communities across the state.
- Strengthening Democracy: California has made significant progress in increasing access to elections, but it must continue working to ensure a more representative and participatory democracy, prioritizing the needs of underrepresented groups of voters like youth voters and people of color.
