Climate Change

An article posted on U.C. Berkeley's Energy Institute at Haas blog today highlights the fact that while building electrification mandates are becoming more widespread, policies that only apply to new buildings will be limited in their near-term impact, given the extremely slow rate of new construction, particularly in the Bay Area. This issue is compounded by COVID-19, which has slowed housing starts down by 30% in the US.

An article in the New York Times today highlights how in the face of more frequent and severe wildfires, home insurers are retreating from fire-prone areas, leaving homeowners at risk and and potentially devastating the housing market if homes become uninsurable. This creates a complex dilemma for governments, who regulate insurance premiums and must strike a balance between letting rates rise, hurting homeowners, or risking that insurance companies will continue to pull out of vulnerable areas.

An article in the New York Times today highlights how in the face of more frequent and severe wildfires, home insurers are retreating from fire-prone areas, leaving homeowners at risk and and potentially devastating the housing market if homes become uninsurable. This creates a complex dilemma for governments, who regulate insurance premiums and must strike a balance between letting rates rise, hurting homeowners, or risking that insurance companies will continue to pull out of vulnerable areas.

An article in the New York Times today highlights new research showing that Americans support government action to restrict development in climate-threatened flood and fire zones -- in some cases, the policies that Americans support are far more stringent than what local governments are currently willing to pursue. 

An article in the New York Times today highlights how the overlapping effects of climate change-- including wildfires, extreme heat, floods, and storms-- could result in mass migration patterns in the U.S. that could exacerbate poverty and inequality while laying bare the faults of our policies, which make it attractive to build and rebuild homes in risky and resource-constrained regions.

In a sweeping action today, Governor Gavin Newsom released an Executive Order announcing that by 2035, all new cars and trucks sold in California will be zero-emissions. The transportation sector is responsible for more than half of the state's greenhouse gas emissions.

An article posted today in the New York Times highlights the sobering climate effects that have come to the fore in 2020, including massive wildfires that turned skies orange in the Bay Area and 130 degree Fahrenheit temperatures in Death Valley-- the highest ever recorded on Earth.

An article in Bloomberg CityLab highlights the 60% telecommute strategy recently added to Plan Bay Area 2050, and some criticism around the proposed mandate. At its September 23rd meeting, BARC member agency the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) proposed, as one of 35 strategies in Plan Bay Area 2050, that large office-based employers should have a minimum of 60% of employees work remotely on any given workday by 2050.

An article in the New York Times highlights how the overlapping effects of climate change and pandemic-induced remote work, combined with the Bay Area's high housing prices, could threaten the economic foundations of California's economy. Although it remains to be seen how large-scale remote work will affect companies, many companies had already started re-locating employees to areas with lower real estate and labor costs prior to the pandemic.

Governor Newsom today issued a new Executive Order seeking to address climate change and preserve California's biodiversity through a number of measures related to lands and coastal waters. The Executive Order includes a goal for the state to conserve 30% of land and coastal waters by 2030, and directs a number of state agencies to take actions to scale up restoration and conservation efforts to conserve biodiversity. 

Executive Order N-82-20, Office of Governor Gavin Newsom