In many ways, California is seen as a model for climate leadership. The state has managed to grow its economy while reducing emissions, and its climate policies have often set the tone for the rest of the country.
But at a recent panel hosted by the Berkeley Economy & Society Initiative (BESI), experts gathered to discuss the other side of the coin: the many challenges California continues to face, from rising energy costs to the possibility of not meeting future climate goals.
Moderated by BESI Senior Researcher and Political Science Alumnus Samuel Trachtman, the panel brought together Danny Cullenward, a senior fellow at University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy; Ann Carlson, a UCLA environmental law professor who served as acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during the Biden administration; and Nuin-Tara Key, chief operating officer at California Forward, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a sustainable California economy.
Cullenward opened the panel discussion by pointing to California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a landmark climate law that required the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. While California reached that goal early in 2011, he warned against assuming that past success guarantees future progress, noting that the state is unlikely to meet its 2030 goal of reducing emissions 40% below 1990 levels under state climate law.
“We [met the emissions reduction target] early without examining how we got there. And it's led to what I will describe as the ‘Tinkerbell theory of climate politics:’ If you just clap loud enough, the climate policy is going to work out,” he said.
Cullenward argued that California benefited from factors outside of policy alone, including rapid advances in clean electricity technology and slower economic growth following the 2008 financial crisis. He also said the state has focused too much on tailpipe emissions, while failing to address larger structural drivers of emissions, such as public transit and housing densification.
“Numerically, if you look at the studies, [these things] are much bigger levers for decarbonizing the transportation sector than our tailpipe emissions,” he said.
Carlson offered a different perspective, focusing on how climate policy can be more durable in the face of political and legal challenges. Rather than centering policies explicitly on climate change, she suggested reframing them around air quality — a domain where California has clearer legal authority — while continuing to cut greenhouse gas emissions as a secondary benefit.
“We're more likely to get a more durable policy if we do this,” she said. “We're certainly more likely to withstand any kind of legal challenges, which are a problem for California, because the central argument from the Republican administration says that California lacks the authority to regulate greenhouse gases from automobiles.”
She also emphasized the need for more stable federal climate policy.
“We need statutory reform. It's no longer viable to issue new sets of regulations every four years that then get yanked by the next administration,” she said.
Key shifted the discussion toward the economic dimensions of climate policy, arguing that California has not paired its environmental goals with a broader economic strategy.
“What we have not done is built an economic strategy to go along with that regulatory approach,” she said. “That is not how you drive economic change.”
Key noted that many Californians continue to face high living costs and economic insecurity despite the state’s climate progress. She argued that climate policy and economic inequality must be addressed together in order to maintain public support for climate action.
“To deliver on a climate agenda that reduces emissions, it has to be coupled with a recognition that we need real economic development and an economic strategy that can grow incomes and support developing the right economic sectors that help us deliver on our climate agenda,” she said.