By Gabriel Lerner
Jun 26, 2024, 7:55 PM EDT
After several months of back-and-forth over spending and cuts in California’s budget, a few days before July 1, the start of the new 2024-2025 fiscal year, Governor Gavin Newsom and lawmakers announced the spending plan. of $297,000 million dollars.
Unfortunately, and due to the state’s deficit of $47 billion dollars, many programs suffered cuts, but there is one that could cost more and in less time than we thought.
We are talking about the California Climate Commitment, which saw its efforts reduced from $54 billion announced in 2022 to $45 billion, but of which, so far, guaranteed for the next fiscal cycle (2024-2025) there will be $36 billion dollars, a significant reduction that calls into question the commitment of state authorities in the face of the accelerating climate crisis that is increasingly bringing more floods, high temperatures and forest fires to the Golden State.
Personally, I dare to mention that in recent years we have covered some of the most extreme consequences in recent decades produced by rains, high temperatures and fires, phenomena that left evictions, destruction, pain and death.
That is why the response of some activists and leaders in the fight against climate change, who seek to reach 2045 with a carbon dioxide-free environment in California, is not surprising.
“This budget heralds the end of California’s Climate Commitment 1.0…” said David Weiskopf, senior advisor at NextGen California.
“The climate crisis is not letting up, and California can’t either…” said Barry Vesser, COO, The Climate Center.
“Many programs received dramatic cuts…, at a time when vulnerable Californians need them most…” said Asha Sharma, advisor for Leadership for Justice and Accountability.
All these gloomy expressions and not with much optimism are based on the feeling that more effort could have been made by the state leadership to maintain the programs that improve the environment, considered vital in a fight that belongs to everyone and where all Californians, sooner rather than later we will be affected.
Some wonder how the state hasn’t gone a little further to protect the fight against climate change by eliminating all subsidies for oil and gas companies in the tax code.
While others question, how is it that in two years the state has cut $9,000 million dollars from the climate investment package approved only in 2022, a situation that has reduced financing for electric school buses to zero, exposing children to harmful diesel pollution.
Unfortunately, in Los Angeles, the vast majority of communities of color live in areas surrounded by freeways and some by refineries that have generated negative health effects for hundreds of families, but since some of these diseases are progressive and are not of a day after day, many end up not realizing it, or by the time they find out it is a little too late.
That is why it is important to continue building leadership in California that prioritizes strong environmental programs that bring environmental justice to the most vulnerable communities.
In one of the somewhat clearer responses to the budget approved this week, advisor Weiskopf expressed that it is necessary to think big in a situation where the annual budget is not completely certain. It is important to find new, targeted funding sources through a climate bond and climate-aligned school bond, close tax loopholes that subsidize the oil industry, and create new, stronger mechanisms for polluters to pay for the damage they cause. fossil fuel companies have caused, something very coherent considering the environmental crisis we are currently experiencing.
Finally, Weiskopf thanked the governor and legislators for their efforts to approve a budget that would allow them to move forward without problems; He also stressed that the $36.5 billion dollars was no small thing, but he stressed that unfortunately “the climate crisis will impose costs on us that are much higher than those we can alleviate with periodic and temporary one-time financing when we have a budget surplus. California can and must do more to meet this moment.”
We consider that there are things that can wait, but postponing programs that help us all counteract the effects of climate change could be a decision that in the future could be more expensive than what we are saving now.
Gabriel Lerner is editor emeritus of La Opinión.