Proposed Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy

California has taken significant steps to reduce SLCP emissions, especially black
carbon from transportation, methane from oil and gas operations and landfill emissions,
and HFC emissions from refrigerants, insulating foams, and aerosol propellants. Still,
more can and must to be done to reduce emissions from these and other sources in the
State, including methane from waste management and dairies, black carbon from offroad
and non-mobile sources, and HFC emissions from refrigeration and air
conditioning systems.
The State is committed to further reducing SLCP emissions. SLCP emission reductions
are important, first of all, to continuing and maintaining the GHG emission reductions
called for by AB 32, and to ensuring emissions meet the statewide GHG emission limit it
established. The Proposed Strategy is identified in the First Update to the Climate
Change Scoping Plan as one of the recommended actions to achieve additional GHG
emission reductions. Growing SLCP emissions (such as from fluorinated gases)
threaten to erode the State’s progress towards this limit; in other sectors (such as from
oil and gas and agriculture) continued emissions will put increased pressure on the
remainder of ARB’s regulatory structure to maintain overall emissions below the GHG
limit and to continue reductions. Conversely, addressing SLCP emissions will help to
ensure that the AB 32 limit is maintained, and will fulfill AB 32’s mandate to continue to
seek the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions of GHG
emissions. Reducing these powerful climate-forcers early also produces a
compound-interest effect through which the effectiveness of future reductions are
magnified: those future reductions start from a baseline substantially lower than where
they would have started in the absence of aggressive early reduction efforts.
The Legislature directly recognized the critical role that SLCPs must play in the State’s
climate efforts with the passage of Senate Bill 605 (Lara, Chapter 523, Statutes of
2014), which requires the Air Resources Board (ARB or Board) to develop a strategy by
the end of 2015 to reduce SLCP emissions. In his 2015 Inaugural Address, Governor
Brown reinforced this commitment and called on California to show the world the path to
limiting global warming below 2 o C through 2050, while highlighting the role that action to
cut SLCPs must play in this effort. In April 2015, the Governor set a target for reducing
overall GHG emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, which the actions
identified in this report will support.
4 Akbar, Sameer; Ebinger, Jane; Kleiman, Gary; Oguah, Samuel. 2013. Integration of short-lived climate
pollutants in World Bank activities: a report prepared at the request of the G8. Washington DC ; World
Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/06/18119798/integration-short-lived-climatepollutants-world-bank-activities-report-prepared-request-g8
web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/VIII/BCClimRespJGR0710.pdf
5 Molina M, Zaelke D, Sarma KM, Andersen SO, Ramanathan V, Kaniaru D. Reducing abrupt climate
change risk using the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory actions to complement cuts in CO2
emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
2009;106(49):20616-20621. doi:10.1073/pnas.0902568106.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2791591/
14 April 11, 2016