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5.21 Climate Change

(California 2010 [p. 1015]). If the Legislature has delegated any of its authority to define
CEQA’s requirements, it delegated that authority to OPR and not to the Governor’s office.

Moreover, CARB’s Scoping Plan to implement AB 32 looked beyond 2020 to assess whether
implementing the Scoping Plan would achieve the State’s long-term climate goals and
determined that it would do the following (CARB 2008a [p. 117]):

Climate scientists tell us that the 2050 target represents the level of greenhouse gas
emissions that advanced economies must reach if the climate is to be stabilized in the latter
half of the 21st century. Full implementation of the Scoping Plan will put California on a path
toward these required long-term reductions. Just as importantly, it will put into place many
of the measures needed to keep us on that path.

The 2014 Scoping Plan Update confirms that “California is on track to meet the near-term
2020 greenhouse gas limit and is well positioned to maintain and continue reductions
beyond 2020 as required by AB 32” and it recognizes the potential for California to “reduce
emissions by 2030 to levels squarely in line with those needed in the developed world and
to stay on track to reduce emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050” (CARB 2014b,
p. 2).

However, the 2014 Scoping Plan Update also concludes that additional actions will be
needed to continue reducing emissions and meet the 2050 goals in the face of anticipated
population and economic growth (CARB 2014b). In fact, significant technological
innovation, well beyond the scope of an individual development project, are absolutely
necessary components of any plausible path to achieving the EO S-3-05’s 2050 target. For
example, CARB has concluded that “California must transition to zero and near-zero
emission transportation and freight movement technologies” which require expedited
completing of “promising new heavy-duty vehicle technologies,” and to “encourage
additional needed technology innovation” CARB proposes to amend some of its regulatory
requirements. [https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/itr/itr.htm] Similarly, in one of several
reports CARB’s Advanced Technology to Meet California's Climate Goals: Opportunities,
Barriers & Policy Solutions (CARB, 2009) concludes that “(m)eeting California’s long-term
GHG goals will require the development and deployment of low and zero GHG advanced
technologies in addition to the accelerated diffusion of currently available technologies.”

These new technology innovations to change transportation engine and fuel technology, and
energy generation and storage technology are generally outside the jurisdiction and control
of the local government agency such as the County. Achieving these goals will require
wholesale shifts in fuel and energy technology, neither of which are currently available,
rendering any further analysis of a given development project’s impacts relative to the 2050
target too speculative for purposes of determining CEQA significance.

The Court in the Newhall decision noted that an analysis of goals beyond 2020 may be
necessary for new development; however, Court noted that the target set by EO S-3-05 and
the interim goal set in EO B-30-15 (discussed below) were not required significance criteria
in analyzing impacts related to GHG emissions and climate change under CEQA for the
abovementioned reasons.

R:\Projects\PAS\CEN\000306\Draft EIR\5.21 ClimateChange-051117.docx 5.21-14 Centennial Project
Draft EIR