California Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign into law a bill (SB 32) that significantly increases the state’s ambitious targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. The bill extends the reach of an earlier law (AB 32) from 2020 to 2030, and calls for cutting over eight times more carbon emissions.

The state’s cap and trade program – the primary mechanism for ensuring emissions reductions – has brought hundreds of millions of dollars to projects ranging from energy efficiency initiatives to rebates for zero-emission vehicles. Opponents argue that cap and trade is a tax that requires a two-thirds vote to approve, as per state law. But that seems unlikely, given that SB 32 passed the state assembly by a vote of 42 to 29, with only one Republican signing on.

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To better understand the influence and impact of California’s landmark climate change legislation, Stanford Report spoke with climate and energy policy experts Chris Field, the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and a professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences; James Sweeney, a professor of management science and engineering; and Michael Wara, an associate professor of law.

Can you explain the significance of California’s climate legislation to the average person here in the U.S., as well as in a global context?

Michael Wara: “California is trying to reinvent modern, industrialized society. It’s a new way to create a productive economy that generates jobs and is sustainable. That’s going to be something people really want to copy in places like China and elsewhere. Setting the example and showing how it’s done is almost more important than hitting those targets.”

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What are the most pressing legal concerns and/or potential obstacles at play?

Wara: “California’s Air Resources Board [ARB] needs to explain the authority it has to extend the cap and trade program. If it can’t, it will face a lawsuit. ARB will likely argue AB 32 empowers it to use the most cost-effective means to achieve these targets. But AB 32 also says it only has until 2020 to use a market-based mechanism like cap and trade.”

Field is the Perry L. McCarty Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy. He is a world authority on global climate change impacts and adaptation, and was co-chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 2008 to 2015. Sweeney is director of the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is an expert on energy efficiency and energy economic policy, and was appointed to serve on the Economic and Allocation Advisory Committee, which advised the implementation of AB 32. Wara is an expert on domestic and international climate policy and regulation whose work has focused on California’s cap and trade program and the efficacy of state and federal climate regulations.