On Wednesday, political leaders celebrated the 10th anniversary of California’s landmark climate change law by touting the industry it created, even though the law was called a job killer in 2006.
Kevin de Leon, president pro tempore of the California State Senate, said that rather than killing jobs, California's renewable-energy rules have spawned more than 500,000 jobs in clean energy.
“This is an inconvenient truth to skeptics,” de Leon said, at an event at the California Museum, in partnership with the Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy.
Skeptics remain, however. “We are seeing economic recovery in some parts of the state, but I don’t think that climate change legislation is responsible for it. They are saying A led to B, and I don’t believe that,” said Loren Kaye, president of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education, which is affiliated with business advocacy group CalChamber.
Others think differently. Ten years on, “we can say with certainty, it works,” said Bonnie Reiss, director of the Schwarzenegger Institute, which is at the University of Southern California.
California's work to reduce carbon emissions and pioneer renewable energy was made possible because “in California, we understand that climate change is real,” Reiss said.
“This is the most powerful environmental law ever,” said former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since he left office, he has traveled the world, and people are envious of what California has done with renewable energy. Leaders in other countries talk about how they would like to do something about climate change, but can’t get it done, he said. “All they do is talk.”
It was difficult and took years to get renewable requirements in California, and to a large extent it was only possible because of the groundwork Gov. Jerry Brown laid in his first two terms as governor in the 1970s, Schwarzenegger said.
“He educated the people on solar energy, bio-fuels and all these things. He talked about that decades ago,” Schwarzenegger said.
Once California decided to move ahead with its renewable fuels standard, however, it ran into opposition from oil companies — and even the federal government, Schwarzenegger said.
It seems incredible, he said, but California had to convince the federal government that greenhouse gasses are air pollution.
The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled greenhouse gasses are pollution, and therefore a real danger, which in turn means states can regulate them, was a close 5-4 vote, Brown noted.
“We’re playing Russian roulette with the environment with the chemistry and physics of climate change,” Brown said. “This is a big idea. It is about human existence and survival.”