California’s greenhouse gas emissions fall by less than 1%

California officials, determined to fight climate change, have ordered deep cuts in the state’s emission of greenhouse gases.

But new figures illustrate just how difficult that process can be.

The state’s emissions in 2015 dropped just 0.3 percent from the prior year, according to data released Wednesday by the California Air Resources Board. The board’s detailed annual greenhouse gas inventories are issued more than a year after the fact.

While emissions from electrical plants fell in 2015, driven down partly by the rapid growth of large solar facilities, the amount of greenhouse gases spewed by cars and planes rose. That may be due to low fuel prices and an improving economy, both of which typically entice people to drive more. Transportation accounted for 39 percent of the state’s emissions in 2015, making it California’s largest source of greenhouse gases.

“As far as the small emissions reduction goes, if it’s due to a growing economy, we’ll take it,” said Dave Clegern, spokesman for the board, which oversees most of California’s climate-change efforts.

Since peaking in 2004 at more than 489 million metric tons, California’s emissions have fallen about 10 percent, to 440 million metric tons.

California law calls for emissions to return to their 1990 level of 431 million metric tons by 2020, then drop another 40 percent by 2030. While most analysts consider the 2020 goal well within reach, they aren’t as certain about 2030.

California has emerged as a focal point of resistance to President Trump’s plans to gut federal climate efforts and pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Trump believes climate action is expensive and endangers energy jobs.

Gov. Jerry Brown, a frequent and fierce Trump critic, has formed coalitions with other states, countries and provinces to fight global warming. On Thursday, he wrapped up five days of climate talks in China after meeting with President Xi Jinping, the mayor of Beijing and the country’s special envoy on climate change. On Friday, he plans to meet in San Francisco with Germany’s minister for the environment.

“It’s not a time for inertia,” Brown said Thursday in a speech at Tsinghua University, describing humanity’s response to warming as inadequate. “It’s a time for radical change in how we power the modern economy.”

California law requires utilities to get one third of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and half by 2030. Last year, California's three large electric utilities collectively got 32.3 percent of their electricity from renewables. A bill under discussion in the Legislature would raise that requirement to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.

The state also uses a cap-and-trade system to rein in emissions from industry and other big businesses. And it forces oil companies to gradually lower the “carbon intensity” of the fuels they sell in the state.

Yet year-by-year progress on cutting emissions has been inconsistent. Emissions even rose in 2012, due to two unforeseen events. The drought cut the output of hydroelectric dams. And the sudden closure of the San Onofre nuclear plant forced Southern California utilities to buy more electricity from power plants burning natural gas.

Last winter’s heavy snows in the Sierra should lead to strong hydropower production this year. And the state is adding renewable power at a rapid clip. One sunny afternoon last month, renewables (not including large hydropower plants) briefly supplied a record 67.2 percent of power to the California grid.