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2019 California Green Innovation Index

2019 California Green Innovation Index

Full Title: 2019 California Green Innovation Index
Author(s): Next 10 & Beacon Economics
Publisher(s): Next 10
Publication Date: October 8, 2019
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):

The eleventh annual California Green Innovation Index finds California will meet its 2030 climate targets more than three decades late—in 2061—and could be more than 100 years late in meeting its 2050 target if the average rate of emissions reductions from the past year holds steady. The report finds that the state needs to reduce emissions by an average of 4.51 percent annually—a three-hold increase over the 1.15 percent reduction seen from 2016 to 2017—to meet the requirements of SB 32, which raised the state’s emissions reduction goal to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

The findings follow last year’s announcement that California had hit its 2020 emissions reduction goal four years early. Yet since 2000, electricity generation has been the only economic sector that has seen continuous and significant improvements in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The industrial, residential, and transportation sectors have only seen small declines over the same time period, while California’s commercial sector is moving in the opposite direction—with emissions increasing more than 64 percent.

It’s not all bad news—the Index finds that 2017 marked the first time that a greater portion of California’s power mix came from renewable sources like wind and solar than from fossil fuels. Compared to the rest of the nation, California has the second-lowest rate of energy-related carbon emissions per capita, and its economy’s carbon intensity is 54.3 percent lower than the rest of the U.S.

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