LOS ANGELES — Many public officials and environmental advocates in California were dismayed by Thursday’s Supreme Court decision to limit federal authority on greenhouse gases from power plants, citing a collective blow to the monumental challenge of tackling global warming.
But experts say it’s not likely to unravel California’s ambitious climate goals to eliminate its carbon footprint by 2045. Instead, it reemphasizes the importance of strong state policy, they said.
“Any time federal power to regulate climate change is constrained, state power gets more important,” Cara Horowitz, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. “California has always been a leader in the fight against climate change, and I expect that will continue and become even more crucial. States have a lot of regulatory power that this Supreme Court’s ruling does not touch.”
