GET THE FACTS
#ClimateBondNow
Our state has set ambitious goals for fighting climate change, but right now we are not moving fast enough to meet them. To reach the state’s 2030 targets for reducing emissions, California needs to triple the rate it has been cutting greenhouse gases since 2010. On its current path, it will take until almost 2050.
CA’S CLIMATE ACTION NEEDS A BOOST
A PATH
TO SUCCESS
Climate change has clear causes and proven solutions but California’s investments in solutions don’t match the scope of the challenges we face. A strong and equitable climate bond will help change our course and help communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. Without it, our health, lives and livelihoods will be at risk – and millions of Californians will remain vulnerable to more frequent, intense, and destructive impacts of climate change.
GOT CLIMATE
ANXIETY?
You are not alone. A poll found 53% of Californians are “very” or “somewhat” worried about the effect of extreme heat, floods, wildfires, and air quality on their or a family member’s physical/mental health. This figure rises to 65% for people with low incomes and 83% among Spanish speakers. Learn more about how your community faces growing climate risks and the relationship to pre-existing health, social, environmental, and economic conditions through The Climate Vulnerability Index.
COLD, HARD CLIMATE FACTS
Extreme heat
Extreme heat already kills more people than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined – and California’s heat waves are now routinely establishing new record highs.
Workers on farms, construction sites, and other outdoor jobs bear the brunt of hotter summer days. By 2050, nearly 60 percent of outdoor workers could experience at least one week when extreme heat makes it too dangerous to work.
As rising temperatures strain the electric grid, low-income families are more likely to have power disconnected during hot summers – while a lack of shade trees intensifiesheat in homes and communities where lower income people live.
Boom and bust cycles of rain and drought
Unpredictable cycles of rain and drought threaten access to clean water – and our ability to produce healthy food. An increased risk of megafloods could produce runoffs up to 400 percent greater than anything seen before in the Sierra Nevada, displacing entire communities in the Central Valley where a quarter of the nation’s food supply originates.
By 2100, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is projected to experience more than a 48 percent decline from the historical average. The last time snow levels declined that steeply – during the drought from 2012-2016 – farmers had to fallow more than 500,000 acres, costing the economy $2.7 billion in gross revenue and 21,000 jobs. Without rain, farmers increasingly pumped groundwater to irrigate crops, causing ground levels to sink as much as a foot per year in some parts of the state.
A warmer, drier climate could effectively eliminate the production of some fruits and nuts and other sources of food in California by the end of the century. Up to 75 percent of the Central Valley may be too warm for certain crops in the next 25 years. As much as 98 percent of the region may be too warm by 2100.
Clean water access
Millions of Californians already lack access to safe, clean water, especially in the Central Valley. Statewide, nearly 1,000 water systems are failing – meaning water is at high-risk of containing contaminants exceeding safe drinking water standards, is at high-risk of water shortage, and where there is high socioeconomic risk – or at risk. More than 60 percent of these systems serve disadvantaged or seriously disadvantaged communities.
Groundwater accounts for 40 percent of our total annual water supply in normal years and almost 60 percent in drought years. It provides a buffer against the boom and bust water cycles fueled by climate change and remains the primary water supply for many communities and ecosystems.
When paired with California’s long history of overpumping groundwater supplies, advancing climate change puts wells and water systems at risk of failure. Overdraft causes groundwater aquifers— and the land above them—to collapse, a phenomenon that damages critical water conveyance infrastructure, such as the California aqueduct and the Friant-Kern Canal. Across California, more than 81,000 wells are located in at-risk areas.
Wildfires
Wildfires are already eliminating decades of progress towards cleaner air. One recent study shows that wildfires in 2020 offset all of the carbon reduction gains California had made over nearly two decades.
Wildfires are also harming the economy, with natural disasters causing $117 billion in economic damage between 2017-2021 – including an average of $5 billion in annual lost revenue for the state budget.
The growing threat of wildfire has also sent insurance costs skyrocketing and forced many insurance companies to drop California policies entirely – leaving millions without protection in case of an emergency.
Declining air quality…and declining health for millions of Californians
As climate change raises temperatures, California's number of days with hazardous air quality has increased by more than 1,100 percent since 2000.
After decades of progress toward cleaner air, experts believe the state will see a steady deterioration in air quality through 2054.
The combined harm of extreme heat and inhalation of wildfire smoke increased hospitalizations and disproportionately impacted low-income communities and Latino, Black, Asian and other racially marginalized residents.
Without aggressive climate action, state agencies estimate California will lose out on $199 billion in economic benefits due to hospitalizations, asthma cases, and lost work and school days.
