Close to Home: An urgent call for climate action

“The alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable: Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.”

— U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres

A clear and compelling report released last week by the United Nations Panel on Climate Change left no doubt that the ongoing climate crisis is due to the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, which has raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to a whopping 413 parts per million. The last time global carbon dioxide levels were consistently at or above 400 ppm was at least 2 million years ago when humans didn’t exist on planet Earth.

That’s according to 200 leading climate scientists from countries around the world who evaluated 14,000 scientific studies to conclude “unequivocally” that the cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution have warmed the planet’s atmosphere by 1.1 degree Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scientists concluded that because nations have waited so long to curb emissions, average global temperatures will further rise 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next 20 years due to the emissions already swirling in the atmosphere, bringing even more wildfires, severe droughts, hotter and more frequent heat waves, increasingly destructive hurricanes, deadlier floods, sea level rise and famine resulting from reduced agricultural yields and collapsing ecosystems and fisheries.

Many of these extreme climate disasters have been on full display this summer here in California and around the world.

The U.N. report, approved by 195 national governments, concluded that temperatures will continue warming rapidly after 2040 unless world leaders take drastic and immediate action now to rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels. Humanity now has the tools for adopting clean, renewable energy production, but we must act swiftly.

Ryan Schleeter of Sonoma County’s Climate Center, a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, told me the most effective way for people to prevent even more catastrophic impacts of climate change “is to put pressure on their elected officials to adopt effective climate policies.” That means contacting all your elected representatives, from local to federal.

Locally, ambitious climate work is already underway since Petaluma’s City Council grasped the urgency of the climate crisis a few years ago and began adopting a host of sensible programs. No more new gas station permits are allowed in town, and all new building construction must be fully electrified to avoid burning natural gas.

In an effort to make Petaluma carbon neutral by 2030, the city is converting its fleet of 250 vehicles to electric power, and grant funding is being sought to make roads safer for bicycle use, build more electric vehicle charging stations, plant more trees for carbon sequestration and install solar panels at Petaluma’s wastewater treatment plant where the biomass produced is used to power local garbage trucks.

Four large photovoltaic installations are planned at the airport, community center, the police station and swim center.

Sonoma County government leaders are similarly on board, with Supervisor David Rabbitt having long championed the county’s Climate Protection Authority, which is pursuing multiple climate-friendly goals that include achieving 100% renewable energy generation (solar, geothermal and wind) for local utility ratepayers, increased installation of electric vehicle charging stations, a zero solid-waste campaign and the adoption of agricultural and forestry “sequestration” practices to preserve carbon in the soil.

Petaluma’s elected officials in Sacramento are doing a commendable job. According to the Climate Center, “Assembly member Marc Levine and Senator Bill Dodd both have consistently supported strong climate policies, such as SB 100, which will see our electric sector go carbon-free by 2045.”

Unfortunately, the same urgency on climate legislation is not yet shared by many others in the Legislature, particularly Republicans.

California’s existing policy, for example, calls for achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. But given recent warnings from climate scientists and the terrible effects of the historic drought and massive wildfires, 2045 is simply too late.

To spur action, the Climate Center has called upon Gov. Gavin Newsom and all state legislators to accelerate the carbon neutrality goal by 15 years, to 2030, matching what we’re seeking to achieve here in Sonoma County. Dodd and Levine have shown their support for such legislation, but other lawmakers have not.

North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman is passionately committed to adopting climate policy changes, but he’s not overly optimistic about their prospects in Washington. Despite the Democrats having won slim control of Congress, and President Joe Biden’s recently announced strategy to shift half of American vehicles sold in 2030 from internal combustion engines to zero-emission electric vehicles, Huffman sees big roadblocks to achieving the enactment of desperately needed climate legislation, which he says must include a clean electricity standard that rewards power producers that reduce emissions and penalizes those that don’t.

Huffman told me he sees strong resistance from congressional Republicans, perhaps tied to the fact nearly all of them receive generous campaign donations from the oil and gas industries. Indeed, while recent news reports revealed that leading Republicans in Congress have finally begun to publicly acknowledge the solid science that fossil fuel emissions are altering Earth’s climate, the caucus is overwhelmingly reluctant to take action to cut such emissions.

“We can’t be that myopic about something that threatens our ability to live on this planet,” Huffman contends. “We must step up right now,” he says, noting that the next six weeks will be critical as congressional Democrats wrestle with complex budget reconciliation legislation that Huffman hopes will include some new climate protection programs.

It’s vital, he says, that the United States adopt meaningful climate legislation in advance of a worldwide climate conference slated for November in Scotland where he will be in attendance. As one of the largest carbon-emitting nations, “America needs to go into that conference with some credibility by having made a down payment on curbing emissions,” he added.

One option is carbon pricing. Huffman is sponsoring a bill that would impose a fee on producers and importers of carbon-based fuels and use the proceeds to pay dividends to U.S. citizens to encourage their transition to renewable, less costly energy sources.

It’s exactly the kind of legislation long-supported by one of Petaluma’s most dedicated climate activists, Bruce Hagen, a leader in the Citizens Climate Lobby, who told me he’s never been more hopeful for the carbon pricing legislation’s chances for passage.

“We need incentives, regulations and carbon pricing,” says Hagen. “Anything less guarantees the suffering we see now will get much, much worse.”

If you’d like to support this extraordinarily critical cause, go to citizensclimatelobby.org or theclimatecenter.org.

John Burns is a retired publisher of the Petaluma Argus-Courier.

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