California Set to Lead the Nation With Its Own Carbon Market

The California Air Resources Board has taken bold action to protect our air and water. By approving what will be the nation’s first state-administered carbon market and the world’s second-largest carbon market, set to be enacted in 2013, a key element of making us all healthier by reducing our carbon pollution is now a reality.

As part of our state’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (known as AB 32), this program is also significant in that it creates a meaningful role for forests and nature to help with the climate problem. It creates a new market to conserve and restore our forests so they continue to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, protecting our climate and the natural resources we all depend upon each day.

This program also provides a new financial incentive to forest landowners, which will also promote and protect the other benefits that forests provide, such as clean water, clean air, and recreation.

Last fall, the California public was overwhelmingly favor of reducing carbon pollution, and it’s wonderful that the Air Resources Board upheld the will of these voters. Their actions will leave a lasting legacy for our state and provides a shining light for the rest of the nation.

Michelle Passero is senior climate policy advisor at The Nature Conservancy California

Photo by Flickr user Cramit (L.A. beach and smoke stacks)