California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 43

Introduced by Assembly Members Bonilla and Williams

June 6, 2016

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 43—Relative to greenhouse gases.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AJR 43, as introduced, Bonilla. Greenhouse gases: climate change.

This measure would urge the United States Congress to enact federal policies to further the effort to combat climate change.

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
has stated in its recently released 5th Assessment Report, Climate
Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, that “[w]arming of the
climate system is unequivocal” and “[i]t is extremely likely that
human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed
warming since the mid-20th century”; and

WHEREAS, In May of 2013, the global atmospheric
concentration of carbon dioxide reached 400 parts per million, the
highest level in the last 800,000 years; and

WHEREAS, In May 2014, two separate scientific papers were
published in journals of Geophysical Research Letters documenting
dramatic retreats of Antarctic glaciers and predicting that
large-scale destruction of the West Antarctic ice sheets is likely
now inevitable and will lead to sea level rises of 10 feet or more;
and

WHEREAS, The 2013 Indicators of Climate Change in
California, released by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard
Assessment, found that continued warming of the atmosphere
would cause threats of flooding along the coastline of California;
threats to infrastructure, sewage systems, wetlands, and marine
life; increased ocean acidification; increased threats from wildfires;
threats to the water supply from decreased snow packs; increased
asthma and respiratory illness due to higher ozone levels; increased
insurance and mitigation costs; and negative impacts to the
agriculture, fishing, and tourism industries; and

WHEREAS, Conservative estimates by climate scientists
throughout the world state that, to achieve climate stabilization
and avoid cataclysmic climate change, emissions of greenhouse
gases must be brought to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050;
and

WHEREAS, The California Global Warming Solutions Act of
2006 (Division 25.5 (commencing with Section 38500) of the
Health and Safety Code) commits the state to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and the Governor’s
Executive Order S-3-05 further calls on the state to establish a
policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below
1990 levels by 2050; and

WHEREAS, The California Global Warming Solution Act of
2006 has reached its 10-year anniversary and the California
economy remains strong; and

WHEREAS, The United States needs powerful new policies to
meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals established in
the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature hereby urges the United
States Congress to enact federal policies that mirror the California
Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 to further the effort to
combat climate change throughout the United States; and be it
further

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies
of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United
States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the
Majority Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative
from California in the Congress of the United States, and to the
author for appropriate distribution.