As California aims to achieve carbon neutrality, CARB is updating the Scoping Plan: stakeholders may take part in the September 30 workshop

Interested stakeholders have an opportunity to engage with California’s strategic approach to addressing climate change.

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, enacted in 2006, requires the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop a set of strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California.  Among the law’s requirements is that CARB prepare and approve a Scoping Plan “for achieving the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”  The plan must be updated every five years.  The first version of the Scoping Plan was released in 2008, and the next update is expected in 2022.

The most recent update to the Scoping Plan, in 2017, resulted from the collaboration of more than 20 state agencies and more than 500 public comments from stakeholders.  It called for support for clean technologies; enhanced industrial efficiency; a commitment to reduce hydrofluorocarbons; the prioritization of transportation sustainability; expansion of clean energy technologies such as solar, wind, and geothermal; the beneficial use of waste resources and capturing value from waste; support for resilient agriculture and rural economies and natural and working lands; and securing California’s water supplies. 

As it embarks on the 2022 update, CARB has held a series of workshops throughout 2021 to give stakeholders an opportunity to provide information and comments on a variety of topics relevant to the Scoping Plan. The next workshop will take place on September 30. For each of this year’s workshops, CARB is accepting stakeholder input and feedback, which may be submitted through CARB’s website. 

Past workshops have addressed topics including engineered carbon removal, natural and working lands, and several technical workshops. July’s workshop focused on potential mechanisms for changing the management of natural and working lands, such as regulatory changes, land-use policies, and market-based solutions.  The most recent workshop, on September 8, concentrated on short-lived climate pollutants: pollutants arising from traditional oil and gas as well as those produced by dairies, landfills, and renewable natural gas.  Among the greenhouse gas reduction measures considered at the September 8 workshop were creation of regulatory limits on global warming potential for new sources of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), such as heat pumps; tightening of global warming potential limits on existing sources of HFCs; and enhancement of recovery, reclamation, and reuse programs.

Also discussed on September 8 were a variety of methane mitigation strategies for possible inclusion in the 2022 update, including changes to livestock manure management and feed additives In considering methane emissions from landfills, CARB indicated that ongoing methane research is expected to help reduce methane gas from these sources by improving collection and quickly pinpointing sources of methane leaks to permit operators to mitigate them. 

CARB has also suggested that additional actions may be necessary to meet the short-lived climate pollutants reduction targets set by the legislature in 2016 in SB 1383, and that new targets for 2030 may be needed to align with the state’s 2035 and 2040 carbon neutrality goals.

The next public workshop, on September 30, will be a technical workshop allowing stakeholders to give feedback regarding CARB’s efforts to create modeled scenarios for outcomes leading to carbon neutrality.

CARB expects to produce a draft Scoping Plan in the spring of 2022 based in part on this series of workshops.  It will then hold a board meeting after the draft plan’s release before releasing a final plan in the fall of 2022. 

For questions relating to CARB or the process of providing input for the Scoping Plan, please contact DLA Piper’s Commodities team at CommoditiesGroup@dlapiper.com.