C'était le genre d'initiative audacieuse et axée sur le climat pour laquelle la Californie s'est forgée une réputation - une interdiction effective de la vente de nouvelles voitures à essence d'ici 2035.

Mais le vote historique de la semaine dernière par le California Air Resources Board fait suite à un certain nombre d'actions environnementales radicales de l'État qui ont rencontré plus ou moins de succès.

Aujourd'hui, alors que les responsables cherchent à changer fondamentalement la culture automobile de la Californie, en réduisant ainsi sa plus grande source d'émissions de carbone et de pollution de l'air, les experts affirment que ces initiatives passées pourraient éclairer la question de savoir si le plan automobile de premier plan de la Californie peut fonctionner.

Qualité de l'air et smog

À Los Angeles, le smog dense qui étouffait autrefois la ville est aujourd'hui considéré comme du folklore. Au pire, entre les années 1950 et 1980, la brume caustique était si épaisse que les gens ne pouvaient voir que jusqu'à un pâté de maisons. Cela irritait la gorge et les poumons des gens et leur donnait des yeux injectés de sang. À l'époque, il y avait plus de 200 jours d'air malsain par an, selon l'Air Resources Board.

Depuis lors, des progrès considérables ont été accomplis dans la réduction du smog et de la pollution de l'air, en grande partie grâce à des voitures plus propres. La quantité d'oxydes d'azote générateurs de smog a été réduite de plus de 50 % au cours des deux dernières décennies, ce qui a considérablement amélioré la santé publique.

Mais les progrès de la Californie dans la lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique ont stagné au cours des dernières décennies, et l'État abrite toujours la pire pollution atmosphérique du pays. Le bassin atmosphérique de la côte sud (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside et une partie des comtés de San Bernardino) n'a pas encore respecté les normes sanitaires fédérales relatives aux niveaux d'ozone, y compris la plus ancienne mesure promulguée en 1979.

"Si vous regardez 70 ans en arrière, nous avons fait un travail formidable", a déclaré Joe Lyou, président de la Coalition for Clean Air. "Si vous regardez en arrière sur la dernière décennie ou deux, pas si bien. Et si vous regardez les normes légales qui exigent que nous fournissions de l'air sain pour que les gens puissent respirer, nous ne nous en sortons pas bien du tout."

Le réchauffement climatique a encore exacerbé le problème en alimentant les incendies de forêt et les conditions qui sont plus propices à la formation de smog.

"Les journées dangereuses de pollution de l'air sont hors des tableaux en raison de la croissance des incendies de forêt liés au climat", a déclaré Will Barrett, directeur principal national pour la défense de l'air pur pour l'American Lung Association. "Nous savons également que l'ozone se forme lorsque les émissions d'échappement et d'autres émissions se mélangent dans l'atmosphère lors de journées chaudes et ensoleillées. Nous constatons plus de chaleur, plus d'événements météorologiques extrêmes, créant de meilleures conditions pour la formation d'ozone et menaçant la santé au sol. Ces sont des crises doubles. Elles proviennent des mêmes sources :les sources de transport."

Mais c'est la capacité de l'État à s'attaquer et à résoudre une crise majeure du smog qui donne à certains experts l'espoir qu'il peut également transformer les transports.

"La plus grande renommée de l'Air Resources Board avant l'ère climatique était son rôle dans la création et l'application de l'adoption de convertisseurs catalytiques et d'autres technologies pour réduire les émissions de pollution formant le smog, qui étouffait les grands centres métropolitains de la région de la baie. et sur la côte sud », a déclaré Danny Cullenward, directeur des politiques de l'organisation de recherche sur le climat à but non lucratif CarbonPlan. "Ainsi, l'Air Resources Board, en tant qu'institution, a vraiment fait ses armes et a connu un succès extraordinaire au cours des décennies précédentes, en s'attaquant à un énorme problème qui impliquait des technologies complexes, des industries puissantes… et des problèmes qui affectaient la vie quotidienne des gens."

Cap-and-trade

L'un des programmes climatiques phares de la Californie, le plafonnement et l'échange a été initialement lancé en 2006 dans le but de réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre de l'État aux niveaux de 1990 d'ici 2020. Il a dépassé les attentes et a en fait atteint l'objectif quatre ans à l'avance.

En 2017, le programme a été réautorisé avec un objectif beaucoup plus ambitieux :réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre à 40 % des niveaux de 1990 d'ici 2030. Pour y parvenir, le programme utilise un système de crédits de pollution qui permet essentiellement aux grands émetteurs de carbone d'acheter et de vendre des crédits inutilisés. dans le but de maintenir tout le monde à ou en dessous d'un certain total.

Les experts disent que cela a seulement fonctionné. Alors que le programme est resté un élément clé de la stratégie climatique de la Californie, les émissions ont diminué d'environ 11 % en 2020, loin de l'objectif de 40 %. De plus, ce nombre tient probablement compte des réductions d'émissions liées au début de la pandémie de COVID-19.

"Les preuves sont assez claires que nous ne sommes pas sur la bonne voie pour atteindre cet objectif, et la dépendance à l'égard de ce programme est une grande partie de la raison pour laquelle nous ne sommes pas sur la bonne voie", a déclaré Cullenward.

Le porte-parole de l'Air Resources Board, David Clegern, a déclaré par e-mail que l'État avait mis en place des politiques pour atteindre son objectif, "mais y parvenir signifie qu'une action concertée doit être menée pour mettre en œuvre des politiques visant à réduire les transports, les polluants climatiques à courte durée de vie, l'électricité et d'autres émissions pour atteindre 2030."

"Le fait que l'État ait atteint son objectif de 2020 quatre ans plus tôt et le succès de programmes tels que la norme sur les carburants à faible teneur en carbone et l'ajout de nouveaux programmes signifient que le rôle du plafonnement et de l'échange pourrait être moindre à l'avenir, mais cela être évalué après la publication du plan de cadrage 2020 plus tard cette année », a-t-il déclaré. The scoping plan is a roadmap for achieving carbon neutrality in the state, and is updated every five years.

Cullenward noted that the cap-and-trade program has some clear parallels to the advanced clean cars rule, including its plan to provide credits to auto manufacturers who sell more electric vehicles than they're required to. However, there are also some key differences that made him more optimistic about the gas car ban's prospects of success.

For one, he said, the Air Resources Board has historically had more strength as a regulator of mobile emission sources (such as cars) than of stationary ones such as factories and power plants, as evidenced by its earlier success with catalytic converters and smog reduction. What's more, while the industries regulated by cap-and-trade are "local, powerful and politically organized," the state has little in the way of combustion engine production.

Fossil fuels

Despite California's green reputation, it remains the seventh-highest oil producing state in the nation, extracting about 358,000 barrels per day, according to state data.

However, oil production has been declining for decades, and the California Geologic Energy Management Division, or CalGEM, reported that "more permits have been issued to plug and permanently seal existing wells than to drill new ones since 2019." The agency issued 564 new well permits in 2021, down from 1,917 in 2020 and 2,665 in 2019.

Some experts said that's not aggressive enough.

"This transition can't happen too slowly, because there is a climate crisis, and there are significant public health impacts on frontline communities," said Bahram Fazeli, director of research and policy at Communities for a Better Environment.

Although there are ambitions to phase out California's oil and gas production completely—most recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom set his sights on 2045—there has yet to be an official deadline such as the one for the gas car ban.

But the state has made some efforts to control or reduce oil production, including a proposed ban on new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools and healthcare facilities. Newsom last summer also ordered a ban on new permits for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, beginning in 2024.

"As we move to swiftly decarbonize our transportation sector and create a healthier future for our children, I've made it clear I don't see a role for fracking in that future and, similarly, believe that California needs to move beyond oil," the governor said at the time.

Fazeli noted that a recent study out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that achieving that transition by 2045 is feasible in California, though it would require a significant investment:About $138 billion per year, according to the study. But the fossil fuel industry is, by nature, opposed to such an existential threat, Fazeli said, and even passing "common sense" legislation such as the 3,200-foot buffer zone has proven challenging.

"California's economy is not different from other economies—the economy is a fossil fuel economy," he said. "So California is going through this growing pain of, how do we become a clean energy economy? How do we transition from a fossil fuel economy to a clean energy economy, and also provide good paying jobs? That's a key part of the puzzle."

Another part of the puzzle is balance, according to Kyle Meng, an associate professor of environmental economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"When it comes to gasoline, you really need policies to deal with both the demand side—like the new car ban and subsidies for EVs—as well as the supply side, which is the production of oil," he said. "One without the other would lead to unexpected, adverse consequences."

For example, reducing demand without supply could mean California ends up exporting its excess oil, Meng said, while reducing supply too quickly could leave communities that rely on the industry in bad shape. In Kern County, one of the state's top producing regions, oil and gas extraction provide as much as 20% of the area's property tax revenue.

As in other sectors, equity remains a major concern, especially when it comes to the communities suffering the worst effects of oil and gas drilling, Meng said. But when considering the state's climate efforts thus far, he said there has been good progress.

"If you were to tell me that California would hit the state's 2020 greenhouse gas goals back in 2005, I wouldn't have believed it. But California did it," he said. "However, looking forward, the task for this decade is even more ambitious. The big open question is not just whether California can meet its 2030 greenhouse gas goals, but whether those goals are met in a way that doesn't exacerbate existing inequities across the state."

Vehicle miles traveled

Although phasing out gas-powered cars is one of the state's greatest priorities, that alone won't be enough. Driving habits must change, too, if the state expects to achieve carbon neutrality.

The state climate plan depends on motorists driving at least 12% fewer miles by 2030, and no fewer than 22% by 2045.

Since the advent of the automobile and the construction of the highway system, large cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have become car-centric. Today, around 75% of daily commuting trips consist of one person driving with no passengers—a practice that remains the primary mode of transportation in California.

"Highway building and sprawl go hand in hand," said Susan Handy, a researcher at UC Davis who has studied strategies to reduce automobile dependence. "That's true in California, and it's also true everywhere else. When we built highways, it made it possible to develop farther from city centers than ever before. And now we're in a situation where we've got these sprawling development patterns and it makes it very hard to get around by means other than the car."

As the state's population has risen and more cars are on the road, state officials funded highway construction and expansion to ease congestion, which ironically fostered more driving.

The only major significant decreases in miles driven occur during economic downturns and, recently, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 as more people have worked remotely. However, driving has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.

Public policy strategy to reduce driving has historically included gas tax hikes or tolls, which could serve as a deterrent. But the state could do better at investments and incentivizing other forms of transportation like biking and mass transit, Handy said.

Much of California's plans have depended on providing financial incentives to trade in gas-powered cars for zero-emission vehicles. But some state officials have requested the state look into how driving behaviors might change if the state invests more in mass transit.

"I think it's tough, because we're a car culture, right?" Air Resources Board chair Liane Randolph said at a meeting in June. "We know how to help people buy cars. What we don't know is how to help people change the culture so that they are able to ride public transit in a way that's economical and equitable and efficient for them to get to work and to school and wherever they need to go."

Infrastructure

Infrastructure will play a huge role in California's transition away from gas cars, multiple experts said. Charging stations will be needed to help power electric vehicles, and electricity will be needed to power those charging stations, among myriad considerations.

So far, the state has established many goals to help get there, including plans to construct at least 250,000 public vehicle charging stations by the middle of the decade; 10,000 of which should be fast chargers, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. The state also plans to require landlords of multifamily housing units to provide residents with a means to charge electric cars, though those details are still being worked out.

And it's not only personal vehicles that will need the stations, but also the heavy-duty trucks that transport goods throughout the state every day. The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have the goal of being serviced exclusively by zero-emission trucks by 2035, but they have a long way to go:Only 35 of the 22,000 trucks that serve the port complex are "electric," "battery electric" or "hydrogen fuel cell," according to data from their clean truck program.

Though the state has made efforts to streamline the permit process for charging stations, mapping tools show huge gaps in their locations, particularly in inland Central California and far Northern California.

"We're nowhere close to where we need to be on infrastructure, especially charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, electric trucks, electric buses, electric off-road equipment," said Lyou, of the Coalition for Clean Air. "And it's emerged as the most challenging thing we have to do."

Another part of the problem is that recharging the batteries of electric cars and trucks could also lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions, depending on where that energy is coming from.

"If you're talking about California trying to move its emissions from gasoline cars into EVs, you're talking about probably doubling the amount of electricity demand on the grid," said Meng, of UC Santa Barbara. "Where's that going to come from? You could imagine large utility-scale solar in places like Kern County, but with the laws as they're written now, it's very hard for Kern County to get property tax benefits from a solar farm than it could from oil drilling." + Explorer plus loin

California phasing out gas vehicles in climate change fight

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