$15.5B CA Climate Bond Likely To Go Before Voters

SAN FRANCISCO — Forest fires burning thousands of acres a year, record heat and historic drought, all are issues faced by Californians today thanks to the destructive impact of climate change which is costing the Golden State billions of dollars in damage and claiming dozens of lives.

In an effort to reduce the impact of climate change, lawmakers in Sacramento are drafting a $15 billion climate bond for the 2024 election to see if voters are willing to open their wallets to "harden the state’s defenses." A second bill is also in the works, according to reports.

“This is a first-of-its-kind attempt in California to create a statewide response to climate change,” Sen. Josh Becker, D-San Mateo, co-author of one of the bills, told the Mercury News. “This winter we saw the effects on floods. Highway 84 in my district is still out. We were all affected by wildfires a couple of years ago when we had the orange skies. There’s no part of the state that is untouched.”

Both bills — SB 867, by Sen. Ben Allen, D-Redondo Beach, and AB 1567, by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella — would provide "significant new funding to thin forests, boost flood control projects, plant trees to cool cities, expand renewable energy, and take other steps to deal with a climate that scientists say will continue to warm for generations to come," the Mercury News said adding that both SB 867 and AB 1567 are moving forward in the Legislature, with broad support from the Democratic majority and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

According to the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst's Office, California had budget surpluses in excess of $100 billion over the course of two years — $47 billion in 2021-22 and $55 billion in 2022-23. The fiscal year, or budget, runs July 1 to June 30.

Wildfire activity continues to increase

NASA's Earth Observatory is reporting that the total area burned by fires each year and the average size of fires continue to increase each year.

Cal Fire reported that eight of the state's 10 largest fires on record and 12 of the top 20 occurred in the past five years and together, those twelve fires burned about 4 percent of California’s total area, an amount of land, roughly the size of Connecticut, NASA said.

According to Keith Weber, a remote sensing ecologist at Idaho State University and the principal investigator of the Historic Fires Database, a project of NASA’s Earth Science Applied Sciences program, the database shows that about 3 percent of the state’s land surfaces burned between 1970-1980; from 2010-2020 it was 11 percent.

The shift toward larger fires is clear, NASA said.

“The numbers are really worrisome, but they are not at all surprising to fire scientists,” Jon Keeley, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist based in Sequoia National Park, said.

Keeley is among several experts who say a "confluence of factors has driven the surge of large, destructive fires in California: unusual drought and heat exacerbated by climate change, overgrown forests caused by decades of fire suppression, and rapid population growth along the edges of forests."

Drought contributes to a variety of climate issues

Keeley points to the constant variation of drought conditions in California as a major factor in the increasing severity of wildfires throughout the state.

“Each of the past three decades has had substantially worse drought than any decade over the last 150 years,” Keeley said, explaining that drought exacerbates fires by sapping trees and plants of moisture and making them easier to burn.

"Over the long-term, it adds vast amounts of dead wood to the landscape and makes intense fires more likely," he said.

Unprecedented drought conditions over the past three years left vegetation parched across much of the state, adding to the severity of fires.

Drought also can make flood hazards worse by leaving brittle trees and landslide-prone wildfire scars.

"Cycles of drought and rainfall are characteristic of California’s climate. But human-caused climate change has made these events more intense and severe,” climate scientist Shradda Dhungel, of the Environmental Defense Fund, said.

“Rising summer temperatures make the soil and vegetation drier, increasing the chance of drought and wildfires," Dhungel explained. "Then in the winter, when California gets most of its precipitation, warmer air with massive amounts of moisture unleashes these big storms that are wetter and more intense. Because of these two sets of conditions, it’s possible to have more intense droughts and more intense storms and flooding."

Heat waves compound wildfire and drought issues

Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that one of the most direct ways that climate change is influencing California fires is by dialing up the temperature. “Heat essentially turns the atmosphere into a giant sponge that draws moisture from plants and makes it possible for fires to burn hotter and longer,” Swain told NASA's Earth Observatory.

Meteorological data shows that the two-year period from September 2019 through August 2021 ranks as the third-warmest on record in California, with temperatures that were roughly 2.9° (1.6°C) degrees warmer than average. Air can absorb about 7 percent more water for every degree Celsius it warms, NASA said.

What's next for California?

Newsom and legislative leaders will have to finish the language of the bills, merge them into one package, and decide which ballot — March or November — to place the measure on, by the last day of the legislative session Sept. 14.

In May, Newsom said placing a climate bond on the ballot is a priority for him.

“What more evidence do we need on climate than what we’ve had to experience with this weather whiplash in the state of California?” he said. “From three years with the driest of dries, to a three-week period with the wettest of wets. Back to back. It’s just extraordinary. You don’t have to believe in science. You can believe in your own lived experience.”