California’s Air Resources Board on December 15,2022 unanimously approved a sweeping State Plan to battle climate change, creating a new blueprint for the next five years to cut carbon emissions, reduce reliance on fossil fuels and speed up the transition to renewable energy.

Their Plan could serve as a roadmap for other states and countries to follow and sets an aggressive target of cutting greenhouse gases by 48% below 1990 levels by 2030, up from the 40% by 2030 required by state law. The ultimate goal is to cut use of oil 94% and become carbon neutral — which means the amount of carbon removed is greater than the carbon generated by 2045. To meet the Plan’s targets, state officials project that California over the next 20 years will need about 30 times more electric vehicles, six times more household electric appliances to replace gas appliances and four times more wind and solar generation capacity. Achieving the Plan targets would cost $18 billion in 2035 and $27 billion in 2045. Low-income communities with people of color are Plan priorities. When fully implemented, California will likely become solely dependent on foreign oil.

The Plan objectives include:

• Californians will be driving electric cars,
• Californians will be sharing the road with cleaner trucks,
• More Californians will live in climate-friendly homes,
• California’s economy will change, with more green jobs,
• Californians will get more power from solar and wind,
• Carbon will be captured and stored.