Bay Area Climate News from Climate Readiness Institute – July 2015

Bay Area Climate News from the Climate Readiness Institute

July 2015

1. The BIG Picture (4 angles)

• Yes, The U.S. Can Reduce Emissions 80% by 2050(technically and economically feasible)— Berkeley Lab (including CRI’s Andy Jones) helped produce this excellent report as part of the 15-nation Deep Carbonization Pathways Project
• What California’s must do to reach its GHG goals (good start — much more needed) — Berkeley Lab’s Jeff Greenblatt’s recent reportlooking at four scenarios and a set of 49 CA programs and policies for the next decades
• Governor Brown tells it like it isin Toronto (and heads for the Vatican)
• When the End of Human Civilization is Your Day Job— Esquire’s sobering and thoughtful story featuring long-time climate scientist Jason Box and his infamous tweet

2. California Adaptation Legislation Highlights

• SB 246— Hearing 7/13 on Wieckowski (Fremont) proposal for Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Program that would begin to link, for the first time, state, regional and local efforts with OPR coordinating.
• AB 1482— Gordon (San Mateo) bill to require new adaptation actions by Resources Agency and Strategic Growth Council.
• SB 379— Jackson proposal to formally link local adaptation planning, hazard mitigation planning and general plans.
• SB 317— Proposed bond issue for Nov 2016 ballot that includes $100,000,000 for local climate adaptation and resilience planning grants plus lots of other good stuff.

3. California GHG Legislation Highlights

• SB 32— Pavley bill would set “40% GHG reduction goal” for 2030 and “80% by 2050.”
• SB 350— Important hearing 7/13 on De Leon proposal for 50% reduction in car/truck petroleum use, 50% of utility power from renewables and doubling of building energy efficiency for existing buildings (all by 2030).

4. Governor’s Executive Order on Adaptation— State agencies are working implement to E-30-15, including Implementation Plans for each adaptation sector by September.

5. CRI’s Bay Area Drought Scorecard— How is your water agency doing? Click here to see how much your county saved. We will update this next week on the CRI web site.

6. CRI’s June 10th Water Event Highlights

• David Sedlak’s Water 4.0 hit presentation(or better yet buy the book)
• CRI’s Current Bay Area Drought Actions (Action Memo #1)
• Proposed Bay Area Actions by Workshop Participants (Action Memo #2)
• Presentations: Future Bay Area Water(Bill Collins) and a brief Current DroughtPrimer (Bruce Riordan)
• CRI’s guideto the best Bay Area drought web sites
• Public Policy Institute of California’s fabulous briefing kit California’s Water

7. All Over U.S., Droughts Can End With a Bang

• PPIC articleon how droughts often end with floods
• F. Martin Ralph (Scripps) “Drought and Deluge in Sonoma County”
• Michael Dettinger’s (USGS) 2013 study“Atmospheric Rivers as Drought Busters on the West Coast”
• El Nino strengthening but still a big ??? for NorCal (Weather.comand Bay Area News Group)

8. Free ARCCA Webinar July 14:The California “Risky Business” report and the Economic Risks of Climate Change in California. Sign up here.

9. Two Very Innovative Bay Area Sea Level Rise Projects 

• OWL Project— Using “time goggles” like the viewers you use at tourist spots to “see” future Sea Level Rise in Marin County.
• Oro Lomo Ecotone Project— Wonderful new multi-partner pilot project to try a a version of the “horizontal levee” approach for sea level rise and storm surge in the East Bay.

10. MCF Fed-State-Region Climate “Scan” — Overview of key U.S., California, and Bay Area climate policies and programs produced for the Marin Community Foundation by Bruce Riordan. Click here to learn more.

Bruce Riordan
Climate Readiness Institute
bruce@climatereadinessinstitute.org
510.665.4357

The Climate Readiness Institute brings together academic experts from UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, UC Davis, and Stanford University with Bay Area climate practitioners to tackle our region’s most critical climate challenges