Full Title: Summary Of California’s Extension Of Its Cap-And-Trade Program
Author(s): Jason Ye
Publisher(s): Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
Publication Date: August 1, 2017
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Market-based policies offer a cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating financial incentives for covered entities to emit less pollution. Eleven U.S. states and many jurisdictions outside the United States have established market-based programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
California was the first multi-sector cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases in North America. The program was part of a suite of policies aimed at complying with state law AB 32 that required the state’s emissions to return to 1990 levels by 2020. The existing cap-and-trade program covers nearly 85 percent of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions. California’s program initially imposed an overall greenhouse gas emission limit that decreased 2 percent—below the emissions level forecast for 2012—annually from 2013 to 2014, and 3 percent annually from 2015 through 2020.
AB 398, the bill extending the program for 10 years passed with bipartisan support and more than two-thirds majorities in both the state Assembly and Senate. It authorizes the California Air Resource Board (CARB) to continue its cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions from 2021 to 2030, with the changes described below.