Southern California got a welcome reprieve from being on the front lines of climate change in 2023, with a wet winter and relatively mild summer buffering us from the deadly wildfires and extreme weather that plagued so much of the warming planet this year.
Our state – along with some local governments, regulators and activists of all stripes – also made big moves over the past 12 months to try and rein in global warming.
Some of those efforts got weakened or killed along the way, though, while the fate of others remains unclear.
As the year winds down, here’s a look back at how five major climate and environment stories shaped Southern California in 2023.
1. Cleaning up dirty industries
California lawmakers passed landmark legislation aimed at reducing emissions from big companies this year, while local regulators pushed policies to clean up warehouse operations, new buildings, commercial kitchens and more.
Most notably, California will become the first state to require companies with annual revenues of more than $1 billion to publicly report how much greenhouse gas they generate thanks to passage of Senate Bill 253. Lawmakers also approved a bill that will require oil companies to take out bonds to pay the full cost of plugging abandoned oil wells. But they shot down legislation that would have given Californians who live near wells and who develop certain health conditions the right to hold oil companies liable.
Efforts to require a buffer between new warehouses and homes failed at the state level. But the South Coast Air Quality Management District started cracking down on local warehouses that aren’t complying with a 2021 rule requiring them to offset emissions caused by truck trips. That rule recently survived a challenge in federal court, while the Environmental Protection Agency is poised to make it federally enforceable.
In August, the air quality district also made Southern California the first region in the country to pass a rule that will require dozens of food manufacturers to begin replacing gas-powered ovens with cleaner electric models.
Some local cities and counties also adopted regulations that take things further. Irvine, for example, recently joined a handful of L.A. County cities in banning gas-powered lawn equipment. The city also passed a rule in the spring requiring most new buildings to be all-electric, though a federal ruling against a similar policy in Berkeley has thrown that policy into question.
2. What water woes?
This time last year, a megadrought that started in the West in the late 1990s had spiked, triggering unprecedented water restrictions throughout Southern California. And forecasters were largely predicting it would get worse in 2023.
Instead, the state experienced record snowpack, while some communities received more rain than they’d seen in years. That wreaked havoc on some San Bernardino Mountain communities, where a bungled government response left some people trapped in their homes for days. But it also caused local lake and reservoir levels to rise dramatically, with no part of California under drought conditions for the past couple months.
While those conditions erased water restrictions, state lawmakers made permanent a rule that says most businesses and public agencies can’t use potable water on ornamental lawns. They’re citing long-term trends that suggest California overall will continue getting hotter and drier.
Such predictions also prompted California regulators to recently give water agencies the green light to recycle wastewater into drinking water.
Meanwhile, California, Nevada and Arizona in May reached a historic agreement to use less water from the overdrafted Colorado River through 2026. But a long-term fix is needed, with states still working on that plan.
3. Young people take action
As they have long been doing around the world, young Southern Californians took a strong stand against climate change in 2023.
Earlier this month, a group of 18 young people – half of whom are local and climate leaders in their own right – sued the EPA for not doing enough to protect them from harmful greenhouse gas emissions. It comes on the heels of a judge in August issuing a landmark ruling in favor of young people who sued Montana over that state’s fossil fuel-favoring laws.
High school- and college-aged folks gathered in Costa Mesa in early fall for the first Orange County Sustainability Decathlon. Students built and showed off sustainable homes, with a team from an alternative school in Salinas taking the top prize.
Some local young people spent the year working as fellows in the growing California Climate Action Corps. And teams of high schoolers from Pasadena and Palmdale qualified to race halfway across the country in September in solar-powered cars they built.
4. Clean energy and transportation projects advance
Thanks largely to record levels of funding from the Biden administration’s infrastructure and inflation reduction acts, 2023 was a good year for renewable energy and transportation projects in Southern California despite a tightening state budget.
The mineral-rich stew surrounding the Salton Sea holds one of the world’s largest lithium deposits, per a federally funded study that was recently released. And three companies made (somewhat delayed) progress this year on efforts to begin extracting that lithium to help build batteries for electric vehicles and more.
Port of Long Beach officials in late spring detailed years-long plans to build the largest facility in the nation designed to assemble offshore wind turbines, with a public meeting set for Jan. 10.
One of the region’s largest energy storage projects recently came online in Stanton thanks to a boost from federal infrastructure funds, with 15,540 batteries now helping to make the state’s evolving grid more stable and flexible.
Several companies advanced local efforts to make flying more sustainable. World Energy is converting a former Paramount petroleum refinery into one of just a few plants worldwide that turns used cooking oil and tallow into cleaner-burning, more climate-friendly jet fuel. And Hawthorne-based Universal Hydrogen is replacing jet engines with powertrains fueled by hydrogen fuel cells.
Speaking of hydrogen, California was selected to receive up to $1.2 billion to become a “green hydrogen hub.” The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are expected to get millions for hydrogen-powered equipment, with funds also targeted at controversial plans to make the Scattergood Power Plant near Playa del Rey runs on blended hydrogen fuel.
After a rocky start to the year filled with investigations and audits, 2023 is ending on an encouraging note for Orange County Power Authority. The agency, which gives residents an option for cleaner electricity, has now earned a vote of confidence from local lawmakers and environmental groups.
It wasn’t all good news on the clean energy front, though. After rules from the California Public Utilities Commission kicked in this April that reduce how much new rooftop solar owners are paid for exporting energy to the grid, industry officials say installations fell off a cliff and layoffs have begun in the state’s previously booming solar sector.
5. Residents fight for protections
Residents of communities across Southern California fought hard this year against projects that they say jeopardize their health and quality of life, with some wins, some losses and some up in the air.
Activists celebrated in Moreno Valley this fall after a court ruled in their favor and blocked a new 396,000-square-foot warehouse project.
Following years of action by residents near the western border of the San Fernando Valley, regulators announced cleanup work is expected to start this spring on the Santa Susana Field Lab, where radioactive pollutants, chemicals and explosives were dumped for decades.
After Jurupa Valley residents protested new hazardous waste being trucked to the city’s notorious Stringfellow Acid Pits, state lawmakers passed a bill limiting what materials can be stored there.
In Orange County, a plan to dig an underwater pit at the bottom of Newport Harbor and bury contaminated soil there is on hold following pushback from residents and environmental groups.
Citing fire and aesthetic concerns, some Riverside County residents have asked the state to reconsider allowing Southern California Edison to install new overhead transmission lines along the Santa Ana River. State regulators will now have to decide whether it’s worth making Edison customers pay to bury the lines, with news expected in early 2024.
Source: Orange County Register
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