California strengthens its role as leader on climate change: State steps up as federal support lags
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* Kim Krisberg

A few years ago, a new but familiar vehicle hit the streets of Gilroy, California. It was a first of its kind for the state: a yellow school bus powered entirely by electricity.

Organizers behind the project partnered with the Gilroy Unified School District to retrofit an existing school bus and completely convert it from fossil fuel to electricity. Beyond the more obvious goal of reducing health-harming emissions that contribute to climate change, organizers also wanted to find a way of converting existing buses that would actually save the school system money in the long run. The final product, unveiled in 2014, could run 70 miles on one charge and the cost of conversion was lower than the cost of a new bus.

![Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/https://www.thenationshealth.org/content/nathealth/47/6/1.3/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/47/6/1.3/F1)

An agricultural worker prunes a grapevine in April in Windsor, California. A record winter rainfall ended the state’s five-year drought, which has been linked to climate change. California is one of the states leading the charge on combating climate change, particularly now that federal action has stalled.

Photo by George Rose, courtesy Getty Images

The school district ultimately decided to sell the school bus to another agency, but the bigger point of the project was to prove it could be done, said Illyasha Peete, MBA, executive director of Breathe California of the Bay Area, one of the lead organizations on the school bus project. In fact, Peete said organizers hope to test out the feasibility of solar-powered school buses in the future.

“We try to get people’s interest by helping them save money,” Peete told *The Nation’s Health.* “Then, later on, that support for stewardship of the environment is created.”

The Gilroy school bus project may be a first for California, but its mission is a familiar one. For years, California has led the nation in efforts to mitigate and prepare for climate change, doggedly building a comprehensive, policy-driven agenda focused on reducing greenhouse emissions and reducing the impact of climate effects. The state’s commitment to climate change action seems especially heartening in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the nonbinding Paris climate accord in June.

In response to Trump’s decision, California Gov. Jerry Brown has continued to push forward with global partners to address climate change. Just weeks after the U.S. withdrew from the Paris agreement, Brown was appointed special advisor for states and regions for the Under2 Coalition, a group of 176 jurisdictions around the world committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions up to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Brown also joined with governors in 12 other states to form the U.S. Climate Alliance, a forum for driving state action on climate change.

“Donald Trump has absolutely chosen the wrong course,” Brown said in June in a news release. “He’s wrong on the facts. America’s economy is boosted by following the Paris agreement… California will resist this misguided and insane course of action. Trump is AWOL, but California is on the field, ready for battle.”

APHA also condemned the decision to withdraw from the agreement in June, predicting the move would have “disastrous consequences for human health.” APHA has designated 2017 as the Year of Climate Change and Health and is sharing tools to help people become informed. That work includes APHA’s 2017 Annual Meeting and Expo, which is themed “Creating the Healthiest Nation: Climate Changes Health.”

“The science is clear. Climate change is happening and it’s affecting our health,” Benjamin said in an APHA news release. “A changing climate affects our food supply, the spread of infectious disease, our water systems and air quality and much more. All have significant impacts on human health.”

A growing, multisector policy framework at the state and local levels underscores California’s climate change efforts. Linda Rudolph, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Climate Change and Health at California’s Public Health Institute, said California has “taken the climate problem to heart” because in many ways, the state is on the front lines of climate-related impacts. Scientists warn that California is at risk for a range of climate effects, including sea level rise, more frequent and intense wildfires, more drought, drinking water contamination and worsening air quality.

“Just take drought,” said Rudolph, an APHA member. “Other states haven’t seen droughts that led to thousands of poor rural households running out of tap water and local health departments having to put in place systems for community showers… There’s a recognition here that climate change is real, it’s happening and it really is impacting people.”

Rudolph said California has long been at the forefront of air pollution policy and still has a ways to go — the state remains home to some of the country’s worst air quality. On climate change, she said the state’s seminal legislation was the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which set initial state targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Last year, Brown signed legislation that expanded that reduction goal to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Other significant policies, she said, include a 2015 law to increase the state’s renewable energy use to 50 percent and double energy efficiency in buildings by 2030, as well as a 2008 law that engages localities in creating regional greenhouse gas reduction targets, which is also driving local innovation in climate-friendly transportation and land use.

Much of the state’s policy work has been process-oriented, Rudolph noted, but will prove critical over time, such as a 2013 law that embedded the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions into new transportation impact assessments.

“California is taking a climate change-in-all-policies approach,” she said.

On the ground, advocates are working to ensure every community benefits from the state’s efforts. Amy Vanderwerker, co-director of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said there is a clear opportunity to use the state’s greenhouse gas efforts to reduce other pollutants that disproportionately impact communities of color.

“All these pollutants come from the same smokestacks,” she told *The Nation’s Health.*

For instance, Vanderwerker said the state’s cap-and-trade system — which allows stationary greenhouse gas sources to buy and sell emission allowances to meet reduction goals — is up for reauthorization in 2020. In turn, she and fellow environmental justice advocates are calling for new measures that would require emitters to reduce other harmful pollutants if they want access to the state’s carbon trading market.

“We feel like it would be a huge lost opportunity if we have policies that are meeting statewide climate goals but allowing other kinds of pollutants in vulnerable communities to get worse,” Vanderwerker said.

The alliance also is working to expand economic benefits related to climate action, such as encouraging smaller renewable energy companies to build facilities directly in communities disproportionately impacted by air pollution. Another example is already on the books — a 2015 law that established the Multifamily Affordable Housing Renewable Energy Program, which is expected to bring solar energy to thousands of renters and lower energy bills for nearly 210,000 low-income units.

An additional intervention in California’s vulnerable communities is quite literally growing from the ground up: tree planting. Cindy Blain, MBA, executive director of California ReLeaf, said urban forestry advocates partnered with people in environmental justice to help ensure a portion of the state’s cap-and-trade revenues went toward planting in disadvantaged communities. The benefits of more trees are many: They offer cooling effects, help filter toxins near high-traffic corridors and provide noise buffers. Blain said the first round of cap-and-trade funding for urban forestry came in 2014-2015 at $15 million, which supported planting and care of 38,000 trees.

![Figure2](http://www.thenationshealth.org/https://www.thenationshealth.org/content/nathealth/47/6/1.3/F2.medium.gif)

[Figure2](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/47/6/1.3/F2)

Students from the Will Rogers Learning Community in Santa Monica, California, shield themselves from the sun in May 2008. The students were attending a performance by Santa Monica College students that included solutions to global warming. California is taking action to combat warming and other effects of climate change in the state and beyond.

Photo by Mel Melcon, courtesy Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

In addition to providing a buffer against air pollution and climate effects, Blain said tree planting is often a “gateway activity” for engaging residents in climate action.

“We have to take the long view of reducing emissions and the short view of ensuring places remain livable,” she told *The Nation’s Health.* “We can do both with trees.”

Preparing for the health effects of climate change is a major focus for the state’s public health agencies. The California Department of Public Health is one of 16 states and two cities participating in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Climate-Ready States and Cities Initiative.

At the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, health officials are particularly concerned about worsening air quality and extreme heat, according to Elizabeth Rhoades, PhD, the agency’s climate change lead. Rhoades said modeling predicts the Los Angeles area will experience two to four times as many extreme heat days by the middle of the century, as well as more acres burned by wildfires, which will negatively impact air quality. Research has already shown significant spikes in emergency room visits on days over 100 degrees, she said.

Heat is particularly problematic in urban areas, where impervious paved surfaces and a lack of cooling features can make the city many more degrees hotter than surrounding areas. In fact, Los Angeles experiences the greatest urban heat island effect in the state. In response, Rhoades said the health department is partnering with fellow county agencies to “aggressively” implement urban heat reduction efforts, such as tree planting and roof greening.

On the heels of the Paris agreement withdrawal, Rhoades said California seems more determined than ever to act on climate change.

“I think we can all agree that pulling out of the Paris agreement is bad for the world,” she told *The Nation’s Health.* “It’s an indication that we need to keep pushing forward even more aggressively than before.”

For more on California’s climate work, visit [www.climatechange.ca.gov](http://www.climatechange.ca.gov).

For more on the Year of Climate Change and Health, visit [www.apha.org/climate](http://www.apha.org/climate).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association