THE NET-ZERO BLOG
Climate policy analysis and updates from Sacramento
Big wins, notable losses in turbulent end to California’s legislative session
A nation-leading data center policy, targeted grid reforms, and new biomass innovation parks headline the wins. A collapsed wildfire negotiation resulted in a missed opportunity to establish a multi-billion-dollar mitigation fund, while efforts to manage the state’s transition away from gasoline also fell short. The next Governor will need to confront multiple energy transition challenges to keep the state’s climate goals within reach.
Wildfire reforms should reduce risk, not just redistribute costs
Catastrophic wildfires are at the heart of California's affordability crisis. Policymakers are considering reforms for how to manage these costs, with much of the debate focused on how they should be distributed. But changing who pays doesn't solve the more fundamental problem: how do we reduce the cost burden altogether?
California moves one step closer to landmark biomass policy
Yesterday, AB 1666 (Rogers) passed out of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, moving California one step closer to establishing its first-ever comprehensive statewide biomass policy framework. The bill passed out unanimously (7-0) with support from a broad coalition of environmental organizations, local and regional economic development groups, air pollution control districts, a Tribal government, and biomass technology developers. As the bill moves to Senate Appropriations, we highlight the opportunity to allocate available Proposition 4 funding to support its implementation.
How can California pay for wildfire prevention at scale?
To reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, California must invest billions of new dollars each year into key actions including forest thinning, prescribed fire, defensible space, home hardening and more. Yet for all of our ambition, a key question remains: where does the money come from? In this technical blog post, we analyze five potential state-controlled funding options. We find that while each option has potential in different settings, a new biomass economy producing high-value products from wood waste may be the only option capable of supporting forest treatments at scale.
Addressing California's wood waste crisis
California is facing an unprecedented crisis whereby millions of tons of wood waste from wildfire prevention efforts are being piled and burned or left to decay in forests, increasing the state’s emissions and undermining broader forest resilience goals. Despite some progress towards establishing a circular economy to collect and process the residues into low-carbon products, these efforts have not kept pace with the scale of the problem. In this blog we examine the potential for California to deploy a portfolio of next-generation biomass technologies, including wood products such as mass timber, clean fuels such as hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel, and carbon dioxide removal.
Reflections on the inaugural California Biomass Workshop
Last week Conservation Strategy Group and the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and Economy co-hosted the inaugural California Biomass Workshop to address the key challenges and opportunities in delivering a sustainable bioeconomy to California. Over 200 attendees met in Sacramento for a deep dive on an issue that is critical to reaching our Scoping Plan goals while protecting California's natural and working lands. In this blog post we summarize the main takeaways from the day.