California
Back to mapTo get to zero by 2050, California must cut emissions by 3.7% a year
Emissions in California
Million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) [?] equivalent (MTCO2e [?]) emissions
Note: Grey area indicates missing data due to processing delays.
Source: WRI, Mar 2021
This is how we're going to do it
- Boilers and furnaces with heat pumps [?]
- Gas stoves with electric induction stoves [?]
- No-till farming to keep CO2 in the soil
- Capturing methane leaks from landfills
- Capturing CO2 to make emissions-free concrete
- Burning green hydrogen to make emissions-free steel
- Plugging methane leaks from gas pipelines
Decarbonize Our Buildings
10% of California's climate pollution comes from buildings.
We burn fossil fuels to heat our air, water, and food.
To cut this pollution...
Let's electrify our heat!
We'll replace...
...in all of California's 11.5 million buildings.
In fact, 28% of appliances in buildings in California are already fossil fuel free!
That means we only need to electrify the remaining 8.3 million dirty buildings in California. That's around 306,000 per year.
Source: Microsoft, Mar 2021; NREL, Dec 2021Electrifying all buildings cuts 10% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Transport
49% of California's pollution comes from cars, trucks, trains, and planes.
But mostly from cars.
To cut this pollution,
your next car must be electric.
Or consider going car-free with public transit, bikes/e-bikes, car share, or other alternatives!
There are 14.2 million vehicles in California and 425,000 are already electric (3% of the total).
We need to electrify (or replace) the remaining 13.8 million gas-powered vehicles. That's around 510,000 a year.
Source: DOT, Feb 2021Electrifying all transportation cuts 49% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Power
7% of California's pollution comes from burning coal, gas, and oil to make power.
To cut this pollution...
Put solar panels on your roof!
Then, we'll replace all fossil fuel power plants with solar and wind farms.
...and find good jobs for those workers.
Current Fossil Fuel Power Plants in California
1 coal plant
Argus Cogen Plant
San Bernardino County
63 MW
293 gas plants
Moss Landing
Monterey County
3,102 MW
Haynes Generating Station
Los Angeles County
2,885 MW
AES Alamitos
Los Angeles County
2,055 MW
Scattergood Generating Station
Los Angeles County
1,719 MW
7 oil plants
Dynegy Oakland Power Plant
Alameda County
260 MW
McClure
Stanislaus County
142 MW
SC 1 Data Center, Phase 2
Santa Clara County
93 MW
Kings Beach
Placer County
31 MW
Phillips 66 Carbon Plant
Contra Costa County
27 MW
Pebbly Beach Generating Station Hybrid
Los Angeles County
13 MW
Regional Wastewater Control Facility
San Joaquin County
5 MW
But wait!
It's not enough to replace our power plants with wind and solar farms.
To power our electric cars and buildings, we need two times the electricity we have today.
In all, we'll need to build 23,000 megawatt (MW) [?] of wind power and 24,000 MW of solar power.
Since the average wind turbine provides 2.75 MW of peak capacity, California would need to install about 8,000 turbines.
Since California already has 2,000 MW of wind and 6,000 MW of solar, that's 21,000 MW of wind power we need to build and 18,000 MW of solar power. That's around 774 MW of wind power and 671 MW of solar power a year.
Source: EIA, Apr 2022Decarbonizing all dirty power cuts 7% of the pollution.
And gives us zero-emissions power we need to eliminate pollution from buildings and cars!
Other Emissions
The last 34% of California's climate pollution comes from other sources...
This includes farming, landfills, industry, and leaks from gas pipelines.
There's no one solution to solve these problems, but there are lots of great ideas:
That doesn't mean there's no solution, it just means that clean electrification [?] doesn't help with these problems, and you could fill a whole book with covering all of them. We need to encourage our politicians to invest in researching new solutions and implementing existing solutions to these problems!
Ready to do your part?
Learn how to electrify your own machines and pass local policy to electrify the rest
Take Action