Today, climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing California. The term was first used in 1975 by geochemist Wallace Broecker, but California had long dealt with the realities of a changing climate before the scientific community named the phenomenon. California’s history with air quality issues, freshwater redistribution, rising temperatures, and decreased precipitation and snowpack led the state to take action as one of the pioneers in environmental regulation. Today, California is globally recognized as one of the world’s leaders in environmental regulation and forward-thinking climate change policy.

California’s rise to the forefront of environmental regulation started in the mid-20th century, when a rapid increase in the state’s population and the proliferation of automobiles led to smog outbreaks so severe they endangered public health and forced industry closures. Efforts by the California Air Resources Board to curb air pollution succeeded in drastically reducing the smog and marked the first success in the state’s independent climate policy. By the time Congress had established the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and passed the Clean Air Act, California had already created and implemented its own air pollution regulations.

As the state’s largest contributor to greenhouse gases, the transportation sector was the first area of legislative focus in California. In 1988, the state established the California Energy Commission, a research body tasked with documenting the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change on agriculture, water supplies, energy, and the economy. In 2006, the state passed the California Global Warming Solution Act, which implemented statewide greenhouse emissions limits with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent by 2020. The legislation has succeeded in reducing 1 percent of carbon emissions each year since, but must advance at three times that rate in order to reach the most recent goal of 33 percent emissions reduction by 2030 established by Executive Order B-30-15.

Actions such as the formation of the U.S. Climate Alliance have established California as a global leader in responsible climate policy.

These advancements in greenhouse gas emission reductions were followed by a series of state policies aimed at incentivizing the creation of alternative fuel sources and vehicle technologies, updating industrial development and commercial building standards to be more eco-friendly, and putting 1 million zero-emission or low-emission vehicles in service by 2020.

In 2015, Governor Jerry Brown established the Under2Coalition, an international alliance of cities, states, and countries committed to limiting global temperature rise to less than 2ºC above pre-industrial levels. The program instituted a market-based compliance program known as cap-and-trade that was so successful in curbing emissions that it led to a partnership with Quebec, resulting in the world’s first carbon market jointly operated by two subnational governments.

The same day President Trump announced U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, California joined New York and Washington governors in forming the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group intended to represent American efforts to combat global warming. Actions such as these have established California as a global leader in responsible climate policy, and according to Nobel Prize winning scientist Mario Molina, its policy success "demonstrates to the world that you can have a strong climate policy without hurting your economy."

However, California’s climate problems are far from over. Rising temperatures threaten more frequent and devastating wildfires.

However, California’s climate problems are far from over. As the world’s fifth largest supplier of food and the United States’ largest food source, California’s agricultural industry is facing enormous strain from environmental changes including prolonged and more frequent droughts, less precipitation, and growing water scarcity. Right now, 90 percent of crops grown in California are grown on farms that are entirely irrigated, meaning that decreases in the amount of water available for irrigation will force farmers to reduce acreage under cultivation or shift to less water-intensive crops.

Rising temperatures will increase agricultural demand for water, and soils will become drier as river flow diminishes. Warmer temperatures will threaten certain crops, like grapes, which require "chilling hours" to flower, indicating that land suitable for cultivation of wine-producing grapes will shrink by 50 percent in the next 75 years. As precipitation and freshwater availability diminishes, the lucrative water-intensive crops California alone produces, such as almonds, artichokes, and pistachios, will become more expensive. Changes in climate patterns will also affect livestock feed patterns and agricultural growth rates, which will upset local and international markets and could lead to food insecurity.

Rising temperatures threaten more frequent and devastating wildfires and the amplification of temperatures in urban areas will affect public health as the rates of dehydration, heat stroke, and other heat-related respiratory conditions rise, and ground-level ozone generates more smog. Decreases in precipitation lead to lower snowpack, which results in less freshwater, decreased river flow, and shifts in the tree line, threatening alpine tundra ecosystems.

In serving as a leader in climate policy, California is not only protecting its own future, but showing other regions that responsible climate policy is in everyone’s best interest.

As water temperatures rise, native California species such as salmon, steelhead, and trout will be driven close to extinction; a 2013 UC Davis study found that 82 percent of the state’s native species were likely to be driven to extinction within the next century. Coastal areas will become threatened by sea level rise, which could also lead to saltwater contamination of freshwater aquifers in the San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay. Projected sea-level rise of 4.6 feet by 2100 would put 480,000 Californians at risk and instigate large migration movements for both humans and wildlife.

California’s failure to adequately address the threats posed by climate change would have international ramifications because of the state’s crucial importance to global trade. In serving as a leader in climate policy, California is not only protecting its own future, but showing other regions that responsible climate policy is in everyone’s best interest.
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Isabella Lloyd-Damnjanovic is the Pacific Council’s Fall 2017 Communications Junior Fellow.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.