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On the whole, state governments, especially those with Republican-dominated legislatures, have been remarkably passive and uninventive in recent years on the matter of climate change. Indeed, at least a dozen states have challenged the Obama administration’s new rule regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and have vowed to do everything they can to see it overturned in court.

And then there is California, which stands apart in its commitment to a healthier, cleaner and less carbon-intensive energy future. Its demanding effficiency rules for appliances and equipment have become a de facto national standard by driving manufacturers to improve their products. The same is true of the state’s fuel economy standards, which have long been more aggressive than any other state’s and which played a decisive role in establishing the landmark federal fuel economy standards finalized by the Obama administration in 2012.

As for comprehensive climate change legislation, in 2006, while Congress continued to flounder in its ultimately unsuccessful efforts to cap carbon emissions, California passed a landmark bill known as AB 32, committing the state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a substantial reduction over business-as-usual trajectories. The California Air Resources Board later put in place a series of regulations and strategies to meet this goal, including mandates for renewable energy and a market-based cap-and-trade program to limit emissions. In 2010, a well-financed coalition of right-wing ideologues and out-of-state oil and gas interests, chiefly Valero and Tesoro and Charles and David Koch, tried to kill the law with an initiative on the state ballot. They failed miserably.

California continues its forward march. Last week, Governor Jerry Brown signed a new climate law — SB 350 — that represents the most significant act of energy and climate policy leadership in any state since AB 32. There was much handwringing (some by Mr. Brown) over the legislature’s failure to approve a provision requiring a 50 percent reduction in petroleum use by 2030. But this was essentially a feel-good, aspirational goal that even some moderate Democrats were leery of. What survived was the real stuff: three concrete and legally binding clean-energy initiatives. One provision doubles down on efficiency, mandating a 100 percent increase in energy savings in California’s homes, businesses and factories — an ambitious goal that, by some estimates, could reduce statewide energy needs by nearly a third by 2030. Another requires utilities to purchase half of their power from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2030, with penalties for non-compliance; still another provides new incentives for utilities to install additional charging stations, the shortage of which is a major roadblock to what appears to be a growing appetite for electric vehicles.

One remarkable aspect of the bill was its broad support — the major utilities, labor unions, consumer advocates and the environmental community all wheeled in behind it. The world is in need of hopeful signs as it heads into the global climate summit in Paris in December. California’s continued commitment to a de-carbonized economy is surely one of them.