On the heels of approving California’s most aggressive target to date for reducing overall levels of greenhouse gases, Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed into law new limits on “super pollutants” — specific types of air particles that contribute to climate change.

This category of greenhouse gases can be hundreds or even thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide and account for about 15 percent of all emissions in the state, according to officials with the California Air Resources Board.

The “super pollutants” legislation that Brown signed, Senate Bill 1383, was authored by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens. It sets caps on methane emissions from landfills and dairies, hydrofluorocarbons from refrigerants and black carbon, also called soot, from diesel trucks.

The law requires that by 2030, annual methane and hydrofluorocarbon emissions must be slashed by 40 percent and human-caused black carbon by 50 percent below 2013 levels. Forest fires, which emit large amounts of black carbon, are not factored into the target.


The measure’s regulatory structure parallels the state’s framework for curbing greenhouse gases as a whole, including the recently approved benchmark of reducing overall emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Supporters of the latest law cite two primary goals: fighting climate change and improving public health, particularly in communities with a large industrial presence.

“We’re protecting people’s lungs, their health by cutting out the poisonous chemicals that come out of diesel trucks, that come out of many sources — what is known as black carbon,” Brown said during a news conference in Long Beach held with major supporters of the bill. “That’s real stuff, and it goes from some machine into the air and into your lungs.

“This is really real,” he added. “It affects poor people the most because they’re close to polluting sources.”

The oil industry and other business groups continue to criticize measures like SB 1383, which was approved despite opposition from many Republicans in the Legislature.


“We are deeply disappointed Governor Brown signed this bill since it will lead to job loss and potentially increased pollution as affected industries are forced to relocate to neighboring states with more relaxed environmental laws,” Shawn Lewis, executive director of the California chapter of the National Federation of independent Business, said in a statement released after the Long Beach gathering.

Over the years, industry organizations have said laws concerning greenhouse gases are unnecessary, based on inconclusive science or too aggressive in their timeline and scope, which they said would cause undue economic hardship on Californians.

After initial resistance from the dairy industry against SB 1383, the governor’s office and Lara struck a deal that gives that sector until 2024 to begin complying with the new rules. The legislation also was paired with money from the state’s cap-and-trade program to help farmers buy “methane digesters” that turn manure into electricity.

“The negotiations were not easy by any means, but together we were able to get to this day,” Lara said at the Long Beach event, adding that his awareness of climate change was heightened after attending the United Nations climate change conference in Paris last year.


“Yes, climate change is bad for polar bears and penguins, and we must do everything to protect them,” he said. “However, the impacts of climate change, pollution and air quality are having a devastating impact on the lives of children growing up right here in our own backyard.”

He was referring to repeated studies from a wide range of sources showing that in California, smog, soot and other air pollutants together cause thousands of premature deaths and exact billions of dollars in lost productivity each year. The most affected areas tend to have many factories, trucking operations and heavy industrial activity in general.

Targeting “super pollutants” will provide an opportunity to significantly curb warming in the near term, climate scientists have said.

While carbon dioxide makes up more than 84 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions in California, methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons account for about 44 percent of all the state’s estimated warming effect because they’re much more potent than CO2, according to a report released by the air board in April.


And while carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries, the “super pollutants” are often dubbed “short-term pollutants” because they dissipate within decades, or even weeks in the case of black carbon.

“As a scientist working on this problem for the last 43 years, it’s a great privilege and a great day for science and for the planet,” UC San Diego atmospheric scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan said at the Long Beach event. He has worked closely with the Brown administration on the issue.

According to Ramanathan’s findings, substantially reducing emissions of “super pollutants” has the potential to slash warming in half across the globe during coming decades.

“Cutting down one ton of diesel, black carbon emissions will have the same cooling effect as cutting down 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide,” he said.


“California has thrown a lifeline to its people, us and to the rest of the planet,” Ramanathan added. “If these policies are implemented worldwide, we will show that we can reduce projected warming … in addition to saving millions of lives lost to air pollution.”

In coming months, the air board is expected to hold a series of public workshop as it begins to draft rules aimed at meeting the emissions targets set by SB 1383.

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