ECO’s sources tell us it is increasingly likely that California will be joining the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) at today’s official Alliance launch as an inaugural associate (second-tier) member. If true, ECO warmly congratulates California on this important development. Since the last COP, California Governor Gavin Newsom has pledged to ban fracking by 2024 and to study the phase-out of oil and gas production by 2045. Most recently, Newsom announced the nation’s largest state-wide setback distance between oil and gas wells and communities.
These important steps will have helped earn California’s associate membership status in BOGA. However, even with partial BOGA membership, the climate emergency demands that Newsom and California do more to phase-out oil and gas production faster. ECO urges the state to join BOGA as a full member, and do what science and justice demand.
Behind its green image, California has a dirty secret: It’s the 7th largest oil producing state in the U.S. What’s more, the oil produced in California is some of the filthiest and most climate-damaging in the world, devastating to both public health and the climate.
The landmark setback proposal announced last month is a long overdue sign of hope for the millions of Californians who live within one kilometer of an oil or gas well. But for decades, California has allowed toxic oil drilling near homes, schools and other sensitive sites. Overwhelmingly located in low-income communities and communities of colour, drilling spews chemicals that cause severe health harms including cancer, respiratory illnesses, and reproductive complications. If fully implemented, the new rule would finally limit the oil industry’s relentless poisoning of frontline communities.
California’s BOGA membership would validate these important steps towards climate action and environmental justice. But ECO also recognizes that California would, as yet, only be an associate member. California has yet to meet the criteria for full membership, including adopting a full fossil fuel licensing ban.
In fact, since taking office, Governor Newsom has issued permits for more than 5,000 new oil and gas wells. The approved wells will produce an estimated 144 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution — equivalent to the emissions from an extra 31 million cars on the road for a year. Those emissions could cause as many as 97,500 excess heat-related deaths worldwide by 2100.
Moreover, California is the world’s 5th largest economy and, as such, has a moral responsibility to be a “first mover” and phase-out its oil production much faster than poorer countries that are more dependent on the oil industry and less able to rapidly diversify their economies.
Therefore, ECO calls upon Governor Newsom of California to end the issuance of all permits for new oil and gas wells today, and to accelerate its phase-out of oil and gas production to no later than 2035 to align with climate science and international equity. And finally, ECO calls upon Newsom to defend the new health and safety rule from Big Oil’s inevitable attacks and strengthen it to stop existing oil production next to where people live. With these steps, California could mature into a fully-fledged BOGA member and a climate justice leader.