The poll initiative, Proposition 30, is being hailed by supporters, together with the state’s Democratic Party and environmental teams, as essential in the struggle in opposition to local weather change. If enacted, it might tax residents who make greater than $2 million per yr an extra 1.75 p.c via January 2043 — or sooner, if statewide greenhouse gasoline air pollution falls considerably beneath sure ranges earlier than then — in accordance to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Roughly 80 p.c of the extra tax will go towards serving to folks buy zero-emissions autos and putting in charging infrastructure, particularly in communities overburdened by the impacts of local weather change. The remaining 20 p.c would go to wildfire response, resembling hiring or retaining firefighters and for prescribed burns.
- But Newsom and different opponents say the proposed tax is getting used as a cop-out by firms resembling Lyft, which has given about $45 million to the marketing campaign, in order that it could possibly circumvent a brand new rule from the California Air Resources Board requiring 90 p.c of ride-share autos to be electric by 2030. They say Lyft is attempting to use taxpayer cash as an alternative of its personal to cowl the prices of complying with the new regulation.
“Prop 30 is being advertised as a climate initiative,” Newsom stated in a current advert. “But in reality, it was devised by a single corporation to funnel state income taxes to benefit their company. Put simply, Prop 30 is a Trojan horse that puts corporate welfare above the fiscal welfare of our entire state.”
As of Oct. 4, after the advert aired, about 49 p.c of doubtless voters stated they supported the proposed tax, with 37 p.c opposing it and 14 p.c undecided, according to a University of California at Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll.
As the “Yes on 30” marketing campaign’s high funder, Lyft was concerned in drafting the measure and serving to to qualify it for the election. The ride-share firm dedicated in 2020 to electrify all autos working on the platform by 2030 and has advocated for comparable tailpipe emissions mandates in different states throughout the nation, together with Washington, Oregon and Massachusetts, Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin stated.
Also at the drafting desk in California was the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Coalition for Clean Air, amongst others.
- Asked to touch upon Newsom’s allegations that Lyft is utilizing the measure as a company bailout, NRDC’s Max Baumhefner stated: “To be clear, Lyft did not conceive of the measure, it came from the community,” including that “it’s a false statement to say that it’s a shadow coalition.”
He stated in an interview with The Climate 202 that “a small portion of rebates will go to people who happen to drive for Lyft, but that will happen not because they drive for Lyft, but because they’re California residents.”
In a September blog post, Lyft co-founder and chief government Logan Green wrote: “Not a single dollar of Proposition 30 is earmarked for Lyft or the Ride-sharing industry as a whole. Ride-sharing drivers will be eligible just like ALL Californians, but they won’t receive any type of priority or preference”
However, Lyft’s involvement in the marketing campaign is an outlier amongst different gig companies that depend on freelance drivers. Uber spokesperson Carissa Simmons instructed The Climate 202 that Uber has largely stayed out of the Proposition 30 debate.
“Uber was not involved in the drafting of Prop 30, and we have no association with the campaign,” Simmons stated, including that “it’s our belief that addressing climate change is a team sport.”
Unlike Lyft, Simmons stated Uber provides resources valued at $800 million total to drivers to assist them make the swap to EVs.
- Still, Uber and its drivers stand to profit simply as a lot as Lyft if the poll measure is accepted by voters in November. If handed, it may be an indication that different states are doubtless to observe, since California has traditionally been a pacesetter in setting nationwide environmental requirements.
The Golden State already has its personal emission discount applications, together with $10 billion over the subsequent 5 years for electric autos particularly from this yr’s price range and $54 billion for local weather motion broadly. Not to point out the added federal subsidies for electric autos from the Inflation Reduction Act.
One of Newsom’s high arguments in opposition to the proposed tax is that the state already has “famously volatile” tax charges. According to the World Population Review, a nonpartisan analysis group, California costs residents the highest particular person revenue tax charges out of all 50 states and D.C..
Dan Schnur, a politics lecturer at Berkeley, stated the solely greater precedence for Newsom than preventing local weather change is avoiding a price range deficit in a yr when the state has already seen shortfalls in anticipated income.
“Newsom is worried that raising taxes further on the wealthy is going to leave the state budget very vulnerable the next time there’s a recession,” he stated. “Whether Newsom runs for president or not, he certainly doesn’t want to spend his second term raising taxes or cutting popular government programs, so avoiding a further tax increase on the wealthy is his best protection against that.”
Biden touts $2.8 billion in Energy Department grants to increase battery manufacturing
President Biden on Wednesday highlighted the newest steps in his administration’s push to bolster the adoption of electric autos, together with $2.8 billion in Energy Department grants to increase battery manufacturing in a dozen states, The Washington Post’s John Wagner and Mariana Alfaro report.
The grants, which have been licensed by the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, will go towards 20 battery manufacturing and processing firms for initiatives in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee and Washington.
Three of the initiatives will concentrate on growing battery-grade lithium, graphite, and nickel, respectively, in accordance to an Energy Department press launch. Another mission will search to develop the first lithium iron phosphate cathode facility in the nation.
Biden has set an formidable objective for electric autos to account for half of all new automobile gross sales by 2030.
Biden rejects GOP claims that launch of oil from strategic reserve is ‘politically motivated’
Biden on Wednesday dismissed GOP claims that his plan to launch 15 million extra barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a politically motivated effort to decrease gasoline costs forward of the midterm elections, Wagner and Alfaro report.
“It’s motivated to make sure that I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on, and that is making sure there’s enough oil that’s being pumped by the companies,” Biden stated in remarks from the White House on power coverage.
Biden once more accused oil and gasoline firms of charging excessive costs regardless of incomes report earnings, saying gasoline costs aren’t “falling fast enough.” In an effort to shortly decrease these prices and enhance manufacturing, he additionally referred to as on Congress to advance laws that may “speed up the approval of all kinds of energy production, from wind to solar, to clean hydrogen” — an obvious nod to a deal that Democratic management made with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) to cross a allowing restructuring invoice.
“We need to get this moving now quickly,” Biden stated. “You can increase oil and gas production now while still moving full speed ahead to accelerate our transition to clean energy.”
Carbon emissions from fossil fuels to rise by lower than 1 p.c this yr
Global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are projected to rise by slightly below 1 p.c this yr, in accordance to a report launched Wednesday by the International Energy Agency, Angela Dewan reports for CNN.
The discovering comes regardless of widespread issues about international locations backsliding on their local weather commitments amid the international power crunch sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The report estimates that carbon emissions will rise by 300 million metric tons this yr — a a lot smaller soar than the spike of almost 2 billion tons final yr as international economies rebounded from the pandemic. The enhance would have been bigger — doubtlessly as a lot as 1 billion tons — with out main deployments of renewable power and electric autos round the globe.
“The global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted a scramble by many countries to use other energy sources to replace the natural gas supplies that Russia has withheld from the market,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol stated in an announcement. “The encouraging news is that solar and wind are filling much of the gap, with the uptick in coal appearing to be relatively small and temporary.”
Oceans are warming sooner than ever. Here’s what might come subsequent.
A report published this week in the journal Nature Review discovered that the warming of the world’s oceans due to human-caused local weather change has each accelerated and reached deeper depths, with the starkest modifications noticed in the Atlantic and Southern oceans, The Post’s Brady Dennis reviews. That warming — which the scientists stated might be irreversible via 2100 — is poised to proceed and create new scorching spots round the globe, particularly if people fail to make vital and fast cuts to greenhouse gasoline emissions.
The penalties of hotter oceans are already on vivid show worldwide, with unprecedented occasions resembling rising seas, distinctive warmth waves, extended drought, fierce hurricanes, lethal flooding and torrential rainfall changing into extra frequent occurrences. The paper underscores that lots of the results of hotter waters are nonetheless unknown however that marine life and the nations which have contributed the least to emissions will endure the most profound penalties.
Us on the first day of fall climate: ?