California governor Gavin Newsom allocates $22.5 billion to fight climate crisis

In his $286.4 billion budget proposal released to the state on Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom set aside $22.5 billion to fight the climate issue.

Newsom’s proposal, known as the California Blueprint, calls for a one-time investment of $22.5 billion over the next five years — including $6.1 billion for electric vehicle programmes — to help the state accomplish its climate and opportunity agenda while also ensuring community resilience.

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The funding represents a major increase over the previous year’s budget, which contained $15 billion for climate resilience measures.

In a letter to California state legislators, Newsom stated, “Climate change is driving devastating wildfire seasons, historic droughts — the challenges seem endless. This is not only a spending plan for the year, it is a foundation for California’s future — a fiscally responsible plan that seeks to make our state safer and more affordable, and to set our state on a better path for years to come.”

According to the Blueprint, the $6.1 billion budgeted for the electric car industry includes $256 million for low-income zero-emission vehicle sales and $900 million to improve the cheap infrastructure needed to power these vehicles.

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Another $3.9 billion would be spent on zero-emission short-haul trucks and transit buses, school mobility initiatives, zero-emission off-road equipment, fuel infrastructure, and port electrification.

Other climate-related transportation activities included in the Blueprint include expanding high-speed rail, improving equity, and keeping communities connected by removing transportation bottlenecks.

A $2 billion Clean Energy Investment Plan, which focuses on long-duration storage projects, green hydrogen, decarbonization of industry, offshore wind development, and the adoption of energy technology at food production facilities, is another significant component of the climate budget.

There is also $648 million to support firefighters, as well as an additional $1.2 billion to strengthen forest management and other policies that lower the danger of catastrophic wildfires, which builds on last year’s $1.5 billion commitment.

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To address drought, the Blueprint allocates an additional $750 million, on top of last year’s $5.2 billion water package, as an emergency reaction to help citizens, farmers, and wildlife who have been affected by the drought.

The Blueprint includes $1 billion for sustainable housing, $415 million for public health implications from climate change, $465 million for expanding climate-related job opportunities, and more than $2 billion for climate research in higher education and infrastructure improvements in K-12 schools.

A $3.7 billion investment is also included to address the effects of extreme heat, build coastal resilience, advance environmental justice, and support nature-based climate solutions — all of which are described in the Blueprint as critical to the global effort to conserve 30% of natural areas by 2030. A further $1.1 billion has been set aside for the development of climate-smart agriculture systems.

The Salton Sea’s undeveloped lithium reserves, a vital component of electric car batteries, were also considered in the Blueprint. While the paper did not specifically devote funds to lithium research, it did state that California has the potential to “to become a global leader in the deployment of new, environmentally sound technologies that can coproduce lithium with renewable electricity from geothermal power.”

According to a news release from the governor’s office, California has a $45.7 billion budget surplus after favouring one-time expenditures over recurring spending.

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“With major new investments to tackle the greatest threats to our state’s future, the California Blueprint lights the path forward to continue the historic progress we’ve made on our short-term and long-term challenges,” Newsom said in a statement.

He said these challenges include “responding to the evolving pandemic, fighting the climate crisis, taking on persistent inequality and homelessness, keeping our streets safe and more,” he continued.

Newsom’s proposed state budget was dubbed “a demonstration of California’s climate leadership” by the Environmental Defense Fund, which added that the proposals “will catalyze action beyond the state’s borders.”

The Environmental Defense Fund’s senior manager for US climate, Katelyn Roedner Sutter, said in a statement, “Governor Newsom’s budget proposal is a bold step toward ensuring California makes the investments necessary to address the magnitude of the climate crisis, improve environmental equity, support a clean economy and protect public health.”