California made great strides last month in its efforts to tackle the climate crisis. One landmark achievement was the passage of two first-of-their-kind climate disclosure laws that Governor Gavin Newsom signed on October 7. One law mandates that companies with over $1 billion in annual revenue must determine and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions. The other requires businesses with over $500 million in annual revenue to report their climate-related financial risk and risk management strategies. California lawmakers seem eager to start implementing these requirements: state senator Henry Stern wants to increase funding for the California Air Resources Board, which enforces the first law.

As the world’s fifth-largest economy by GDP, California holds a lot of sway, especially by setting standards for the rest of the nation and world to follow. This is important given that the Carbon Disclosure Project reported that just 100 companies were responsible for 71% of all industrial greenhouse gas emissions from 1998 to 2017. Since these two laws will affect more than 5,300 companies, they are good first steps in holding companies accountable for their contributions to the climate crisis. 

Aside from these two laws, the state has also made and received millions of dollars in climate-related investments in recent weeks. On October 24, the EPA announced $13 million in grant money toward 18 environmental justice projects in California. These funds are part of the Biden Administration’s Justice40 initiative, which directs 40% of certain federal investments toward disadvantaged communities.  While welcome news for environmental justice efforts as a whole, Justice40 has been criticized for not including race as a factor in its calculations. 

These environmental justice projects include urban cooling efforts by the City of Sacramento and air quality improvement in the San Joaquin Valley. The Sacramento Neighborhood Resilience Pilot Project includes: installing air filters and planting trees for low-income homes, promoting water conservation in two Sacramento City Unified School District schools, and educating communities on disaster preparation. The San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District received $1 million to work with grassroots organizations to provide free air purifiers to 3,700 disadvantaged residents.

Finally, on October 26, Gov. Newsom announced more than $40 million of federal money would go toward expanding the state’s electric vehicle (EV) charging network. The state hopes to reach 250,000 public and shared-private EV chargers by 2025 to support the growing EV market. 

California made significant progress this month toward its sustainability goals. There is certainly room for improvement, and the state’s climate mitigation efforts will have to continue long-term to be effective. But all in all, October had a lot of great climate-related news to celebrate.