AB32 | Climate Watch

State will start with a dry run while questions remain about how to spend the money

smokestack — Starting next year, industries will have to track their greenhouse gas emissions and some will have to pay for carbon pollution rights.

Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board (ARB) announced at a state senate hearing that the first carbon permit auction will be pushed back to November 14th.

The surprise announcement came at a hearing called to discuss what to do with proceeds from the sale of permits to emit greenhouse gases, the first of which is expected to flow into state coffers late this year.

Nichols’ announcement stole the headlines, though she said that the new auction date will not affect the overall timeline for implementation and that August will now be a “practice auction.”

“We’ll give everybody a free round in August where the auction won’t really count,” Nichol told me. “So that gives all the stakeholders, including of course, all the companies that are going to have to be purchasing allowances at the beginning an opportunity to see how the system will actually work.” Continue reading California Delays First Cap & Trade Permit Auction →

Bull_0090 — A bull stares down the photographer in California’s Panoche Valley.” credit=”Craig Miller / KQED

California’s ranchers could face a tougher economic future under climate change. The grasslands they depend on to feed their cattle could shrink by almost 40% by the end of the century, according to a study from Duke University and the Environmental Defense Fund.

The researchers modeled two different climate futures for California: a warmer, wetter scenario and a warmer, drier one. The study showed that by the end of the century, California’s shrublands could increase as much as 70% under the worst-case dry scenario, taking over historic grasslands and other ecosystems. Continue reading California’s Rangeland Could Take a Hit from Climate Change →