Jerry Brown, Governor of California has announced a determined pledge on behalf of the state concerning the target set out to allow the state to be 50% powered by renewable energy within the next 15 years. This California governor pledge was made during Brown’s speech in early 2015, as he was sworn into office for a record setting fourth term.
Edmund G Brown a Democrat, better known as Jerry, has also made promises regarding better fuel and energy efficiency and expanded on the importance of technological structures to compliment the impending renewable generation. Such technologies include microgrids as well as energy storage.
Governor Brown’s inaugural speech highlights his concerns
Elected in 2011, Brown is in he’s second stint as governor, having served for two previous terms during the 1970’s and 80’s. He succeeded Republican Arnold “Governator” Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger may have had a right-of-centre political view, but his stance was pro-renewable energy and he was involved with combating environmental issues as well.
Brown’s inaugural speech contained a short statement by going back to he’s recent success of balancing the states budgets during the past few years. He also touched upon many of the issues still putting pressure on California, which includes environmental problems, which have continued to concern him since the days his own father Pat Brown was governor during the 1950’s and 60’s.
“That was 56 years ago, yet the issues that my father raised at his inauguration bear eerie resemblance to those we still grapple with today: discrimination; the quality of education and the challenge of recruiting and training teachers; the menace of air pollution, and its danger to our health; a realistic water programme; economic development; consumer protection; and overcrowded prisons.”
Governor also pledging to continue California’s work in the renewable industry
He also discussed the environment in quite a bit of detail, acknowledging the fact that California and the world on the whole will suffer great losses if something is not done. Sounding positive that progress is being made, Brown also mention the success that have put he’s state in a leading position of renewable energy deployment.
California has come out on top of US Charts regarding solar installations according to a December survey, which indicates that 73,000 employees are employed within the solar industry. The word renewable energy was mention three times, as he acknowledged California’s success stories.
“…we are well on our way to meeting our AB 32 (Assembly Bill 32, or the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) goal of reducing carbon pollution and limiting the emissions of heat-trapping gases to 431 million tons by 2020. But now, it is time to establish our next set of objectives for 2030 and beyond,” Brown said.
“I propose three ambitious goals to be accomplished within the next 15 years: increase from one-third to 50% our electricity derived from renewable sources; reduce today’s petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to 50%; double the efficiency of existing buildings and make heating fuels cleaner.”
Brown reiterates the importance of change in the fight against global warming
Currently, the state is on track in meeting its target of producing 30% of all its energy through renewable sources by 2020. Brown re-iterated that even though this may be case, it’s still imperative to plan ahead to 2030 and set new targets and goals.
The task is enormous in its entirety, and the governor is aware of that. He went into detail explain how California will go about achieving these new and ambitious targets set out as well as why the cost of not achieving them will prove to be destructive.
“How we achieve these goals and at what pace will take great thought and imagination mixed with pragmatic caution. It will require enormous innovation, research and investment. And we will need active collaboration at every stage with our scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, businesses and officials at all levels.”
“I envision a wide range of initiatives: more distributed power, expanded rooftop solar, microgrids, an energy imbalance market, battery storage, the full integration of information technology and electrical distribution and millions of electric and low-carbon vehicles,” he stated.
“Taking significant amounts of carbon out of our economy without harming its vibrancy is exactly the sort of challenge at which California excels. This is exciting, it is bold and it is absolutely necessary if we are to have any chance of stopping potentially catastrophic changes to our climate system.”
Photo by: Robert Couse-Baker on Flickr
