Opinion: California can lead climate change fight by cutting industry pollution
Ambitious state policies could put clean technology on factory floors, reward innovation and build new markets.
Climate change has an industrial-sized problem. The factories that produce everything from vehicles to chemicals will be America’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions by 2035.
In California, industry is the second-highest emitting economic sector, responsible for nearly a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions. Our power sector is one of America’s cleanest, and our zero-emission vehicle requirements will dramatically cut transportation emissions. That makes industry the largest remaining hurdle to achieving our net-zero emissions target set by the 2022 California Climate Crisis Act.
Achieving our climate goals requires ambitious government policy to ensure clean industrial technologies are deployed on factory floors, reward innovative manufacturing, and build domestic markets for clean industrial products. California has pioneered several forward-thinking policies, but we can build on these to become a clean industrial leader and achieve zero-carbon industry.
For instance, the state Legislature should set a date after which newly installed industrial equipment may produce no emissions from fossil fuel combustion, akin to California requiring newly sold cars and light trucks to produce no emissions by 2035.
2017’s Buy Clean California Act mandated state infrastructure projects prioritize steel, glass and insulation produced using low-emissions processes. The state Legislature should extend this program to additional building materials like cement, concrete and aluminum.
California should expand low-cost financing access to help manufacturers switch to clean processes. An industrial decarbonization program through the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank could provide incentives without worsening our budget deficit since financing is ultimately repaid and can come from the private sector through credit enhancements or bond sales. Meanwhile, policies to improve product longevity and quality like right-to-repair and extended producer responsibility rules can reduce waste, making the transition to clean industry faster and cheaper.
These straightforward steps would help accelerate the deployment of technologies such as green hydrogen, renewable electricity, energy and material efficiency, and electrified heating in the industrial sector. Electrical technologies like industrial heat pumps, electric resistance heaters, electric arcs and electromagnetic induction can provide the heat needed by industry, and some can achieve temperatures higher than fossil fuel combustion- — more than hot enough for any industrial process. Rolled out nationally, these technologies could slash U.S. carbon dioxide pollution by 620 million metric tons per year, equivalent to taking 138 million gasoline-powered cars off the roads or retiring 1,558 natural gas-fired power plants.
Past experience shows California can be a policy trendsetter. After California enacted its Buy Clean law, six other states enacted their own clean procurement policies, and President Biden followed suit in 2021, launching a federal Buy Clean initiative for nationwide green public procurement using the U.S. government’s annual $630 billion purchasing power.
Last August, the California Building Standards Commission established emissions limits on manufacturing materials for large commercial and school buildings. We’re the first U.S. state to consider these “embodied” emissions in our building codes.
Our cap-and-trade policy applies carbon pricing to industrial facilities — a groundbreaking program distinguished from the approach used in 11 eastern states that only price power sector emissions. Oregon and Washington later enacted similar programs.
The benefits are huge. Clean industrial technologies could prevent the 400-900 deaths, 13,000 asthma attacks, and 65,000 lost workdays currently caused by California’s industrial emissions annually. Investments in modern manufacturing technologies would grow our economy. And our communities would be safer if we cut the pollution causing wildfires, drought, and other extreme weather.
From steel fabricated without coal, to beer brewed without natural gas, to cement that sequesters carbon, an industrial revolution is unfolding. It’ll change how we make everything; it could help solve the climate crisis; and it’s happening here in California.
Jeffrey Rissman is senior director of the industry program at Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based nonpartisan energy and climate policy think tank. His new book is “Zero-Carbon Industry: Transformative Technologies and Policies to Achieve Sustainable Prosperity.”