California Climate Policies Serving Climate Justice

Abstract

As the Green New Deal highlights the importance of integrating social justice into climate policy, California has been steadily incorporating climate justice elements into its comprehensive climate strategies. This essay, published in the ABA’s Natural Resources & Environment journal, shines a spotlight on several of the state’s innovative programs and surfaces both the opportunities and the challenges of integrating social and environmental justice into greenhouse gas reduction programs. It provides a short introduction to issues explored in more depth in “A Broader Vision for Climate Policy: Lessons from California,” available here: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3191532.

Keywords: climate change, climate justice, environmental justice, California climate policy, state climate policy, global warming