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…
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