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California’s carbon emissions are back to ’90s levels. It can be done, people!

California’s carbon emissions are back to where they were when Macaulay Culkin was battling burglars and MC Hammer first told us we couldn’t touch this.

The California Air Resources Board said Wednesday that the state had hit its goal of bringing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels four years ahead of schedule. The drop came thanks to a boom in renewables and improving efficiency.

“California set the toughest emissions targets in the nation, tracked progress and delivered results,” said Governor Jerry Brown in a statement.

The state actually hit the goal in 2016 and is only reporting it now because it takes a while to crunch the numbers. A 2006 law set the target and put the Air Resources Board in charge of charting the state’s progress.

The board’s report shows that carbon emissions dropped 13 percent from their recent peak, while the average Californian’s carbon footprint shrank 23 percent, to 10.8 metric tons per person — about half the national average.

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The results put the lie to the canard that emissions can only fall when an economy shrinks: the Golden State’s economy boomed as it cut its emissions. “California now produces twice as many goods and services for the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as the rest of the nation,” according to the Air Resources Board.

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The biggest reductions came from the electric power sector, where an increase in wind and solar energy has been displacing fossil fuels.

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To be sure, there are some signs that future progress could be harder. In the first quarter of this year, for instance, California’s electric system was actually slightly more polluting than the same quarter of last year. The state will need to make improvements in other sectors to meet its goals. At this point those miles of vehicles, bumper to bumper on the freeways — not electric power — are the largest problem. And transportation emissions have gone up, not down.

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And so policy makers are turning their attention to cars. Governor Brown has a goal of getting 5 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030, up from about 400,000 today. To help that happen, California is spending nearly a billion dollars on charging stations, electric buses, and electric vehicles for government agencies. Some legislators are also trying to allow developers to build more homes in cities, where people can bike or take transit rather than driving. Both candidates vying to replace Brown as governor have vowed to build more housing.

California’s climate laws set the next milestone at cutting emissions another 40 percent by 2030, what Brown called “a heroic and very ambitious goal.”

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California’s carbon emissions are back to ’90s levels. It can be done, people!

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More cheating automakers? Mitsubishi and Fiat are now in hot water too

More cheating automakers? Mitsubishi and Fiat are now in hot water too

By on Apr 27, 2016Share

Looks like VW isn’t the only carmaker with a truthiness problem.

Last week, Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi admitted that the company has been overstating the fuel economy of some of its models for the past 25 years, as well as using testing standards that weren’t in compliance with Japanese law.

Ryugo Nakao, executive vice president of the company, told the Guardian that although Japanese emissions regulations changed 25 years ago to better reflect urban driving patterns and stop-and-go traffic, Mitsubishi failed to update its testing methods. “We should have switched, but it turns out we didn’t,” Nakao said.

The Japanese press is reporting that Mitsubishi’s top two executives will step down. The company may have to answer to U.S. regulators as well: The EPA, along with the California Air Resources Board, has ordered the carmaker to conduct additional emissions tests on vehicles sold in the U.S.

But Mitsubishi isn’t the only new resident of the doghouse. Fiat is also being accused of behaving badly — in its case, by cheating on emissions tests. Reuters reports that a probe into other car manufacturers after last year’s VW scandal revealed that some Fiat diesel engines also showed irregularities in emissions tests. In particular, investigators allege that the Fiat 500X uses software that turns off emission-control devices after the car has been running for 22 minutes.

As bad as these scandals are for manufacturers, they are worse for all of us who depend on breathable air and an inhabitable climate. Volkswagen’s emissions cheats alone are estimated to have caused as much air pollution annually as all of the United Kingdom’s power stations, vehicles, industry, and agriculture combined.

As for the environmental damage Mitsubishi and Fiat have caused, it’s too soon to speculate, but the companies themselves will certainly pay a price. Mitsubishi’s stock price fell by nearly 45 percent after its 25-year-long deception came to light. And just look at Volkswagen: Its emissions cheating scandal is projected to cost the company more than $35 billion.

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More cheating automakers? Mitsubishi and Fiat are now in hot water too

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, Naka, Nissan, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on More cheating automakers? Mitsubishi and Fiat are now in hot water too