Proposed Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy

Program, and Proposition 39 to expand clean energy investments in California and
further reduce emissions of SLCPs and other GHGs. Additionally, programs including
the Bioenergy Feed-In Tariff, created by Senate Bill 1122 (Rubio, Chapter 612, Statutes
of 2012), Low Carbon Fuel Standard, Cap-and-Trade, Self-Generation Incentive
Program, Federal Renewable Fuel Standard, utility incentives pursuant to Assembly Bill
1900 (Gatto, Chapter 602, Statutes of 2012), and others provide important market
signals and potential revenue streams to support projects to reduce SLCP emissions.
These programs are described in more detail in Chapter VII.
Potential new funding mechanisms and incentive structures must also be considered.
These could include adjusting the waste disposal tipping fee structure to account for the
full cost of managing organic materials and landfills, state procurement contracts for
renewable natural gas and other fuels in buildings or vehicles as well as for compost
and mulch products in landscaping and erosion control, or labeling programs to
recognize leading companies in the market place, including those producing milk with
low levels of dairy methane emissions or freight haulers using clean technologies.
E. Advance the Science of SLCP Sources and Emissions
Data related to SLCPs and their sources is often less available or of lower quality than it
is for CO 2 . One reason is that energy-related
emissions of CO 2 are often easier to quantify than
emissions of other GHGs, which may form through
complex biological or other processes where
existing reporting guidelines and procedures may
not apply. There has also been less of a focus on
collecting additional data that could help to quantify
GHG emissions from some non-CO 2 sources.
This Proposed Strategy, including Appendices A
and B, describes several coordinated research
efforts under way and potential new ones. To
provide a better understanding of methane emissions from the natural gas system and
natural gas and oil supplied to California, dairy operations, landfills, as well as various
sources of HFCs and black carbon emissions, others not identified here also may be
considered in the future.
For example, methane emissions are emitted from a wide range of biological processes
and fugitive and area sources that make estimating emissions difficult. California’s
methane emission estimates are derived from a variety of surveys, government data
sources, growth assumptions and modeling methodologies. ARB staff is continuously
assessing ways to improve the methane inventory by incorporating the latest scientific
understanding of methane sources, through coordinated research with other agencies,
and by using the best available activity data. Additional research and improved data
sources will be needed to continue to refine the methane inventory and provide
California-specific activity data.
28 April 11, 2016