Climate Justice (News)

Organizers call San Francisco “flagship” event for worldwide campaign

More than a thousand people marched down Market Street in San Francisco for the Moving Planet rally.
About a thousand people marched in San Francisco on Saturday, chanting slogans, carrying signs and wearing costumes. But unlike many demonstrations that frequent the City by the Bay, the Moving Planet rally was one of hundreds around the world, calling for action and awareness to halt global climate change.

By Craig Miller

Members of the “environmental justice” movement lost a major round to air officials on Wednesday, when the latter voted to keep California’s nascent cap-and-trade plan on track.

The program is a key component of the state’s landmark strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Activists sued to stop the program, claiming it does little to curb toxic emissions from industrial facilities and farming operations.

Take Action to Support Alternatives to Cap and Trade.

The next step is to contact Governor Jerry Brown, and tell him to stop cap and trade and support a carbon tax. Call Brown at (916) 445-2841 (9 am to 5 pm) or e-mail the governor's office.

California's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) is an important step toward addressing climate change. However, when it passed we were disappointed that it included setting up a cap-and-trade program. There are number of serious problems with this model. The European Union's first cap-and-trade system actually produced windfall profits for polluters, and failed to seriously reduce emissions! See below to learn more.

Environmental justice organizations sued the state over cap and trade, and forced officials to look at stronger alternatives. A stronger climate plan would combine two of the ideas identified by the California Air Resources Board:

Carbon Tax. This is a much more transparent approach to pricing carbon. Also, the revenues go to the state, which can use it to close the budget gap, re-fund our public transportation systems, schools, and social services, and invest in green energy. We the People need that money more than Chevron does — make polluters pay!
     
Regulate specific pollution sources. To ensure we clean up the air in the most polluted areas, combine a carbon tax with strict enforcement of clean air laws with the biggest polluters, such as oil refineries.

Press Release
For immediate release
July 1, 2011

Contact:
Bill Gallegos, CBE (323) 573-5310
Caroline Farrell, CRPE (661) 586-2621
Evelyn Rangel-Medina, CrossRoots (702) 534-9115
Joaquín Quetzal Sánchez, CrossRoots (917) 575-3154

CALIFORNIA CAP-AND-TRADE IS NOT READY – ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE COMMUNITIES LIFT EQUITABLE ALTERNATIVES

HUNTINGTON PARK, CA—A coalition of Environmental Justice groups are committed to continue lifting California forward by stopping Cap-and-Trade and implementing AB 32 equitably. On June 24, 2011 the Appellate Court issued a stay order allowing the California Air Resources Board to move ahead in the planning of a Cap-and-Trade program, jeopardizing AB 32, California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act.

On June 29, 2011, ARB Chair Mary Nichols announced Cap-and-Trade is not ready and will postpone enforcement until 2013.

By Jeff Conant

The judge greenlighted most of the policies in California's AB32 except the cap and trade plan, which some argued would benefit polluters at the expense of poor communities.

San Francisco's Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment (CRPE) announced today that it received the judge's writ in its lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The writ gives the green light to most of the policies advanced under AB32, California's Global Warming Solutions Act, but puts a permanent hold on cap and trade.

"Judge Ernest Goldsmith of the San Francisco Superior Court ruled that CARB violated CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) when, among other things, it failed to properly consider alternatives to a 'cap and trade' program in its Scoping Plan to implement AB 32," CRPE's statement says. "The Court's Writ, issued Friday, enjoins, or stops, all implementation and actions in furtherance of cap and trade until CARB completes a lawfully adequate CEQA review."