California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law [press release] two bills that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030. The bills, SB 32, sponsored by Senator Fran Pavle, and AB 197, sponsored by Assembly Member Eduardo Garcia, had been introduced in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The new regulations will assist California to meet or exceed the state’s current target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the levels existing in 1990 by 2020, as established in the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 [text, PDF]. Additional requirements for reduction by 2030 will help make it possible for California to reach the ultimate goal of reducing emissions to 80 percent under 1990 levels by 2050.

At least since 1992, with the UN Conference on Environment and Development, treaties [JURIST backgrounder] on climate change have bolstered multi-national commitment to combating climate change. On the state level, California has finalized many pieces of legislation seeking to reduce greenhouse gasses and other alleged contributors to climate change for the last decade or more. The state introduced the Clean Car Law in 2002 and the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006. In the past year, Brown has traveled to the UN headquarters in New York, the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, the Vatican in Italy and the Climate Summit of the Americas in Toronto, Canada [press releases] to urge other leaders to fight against climate change with the same intensity as California.