A new report from Biofuelwatch is simply brilliant in exposing California's polluter-friendly neoliberal cap-and-trade program and related market-driven policies behind California's "climate leader" image.
The report — titled ‘Carbon Capture or Captured Futures? Fossil Fuel and Bioenergy Controls California “Getting to Neutral” Climate Policy’ — reveals the intricate workings of California’s policy making apparatus, according to a report summary from Biofuelwatch.
“The report describes how an elite group of private and public sector specialists has coordinated behind the scenes to promote unproven and dangerous carbon removal technologies in a multifaceted attempt to set the state climate policy table — and to establish a model that could be exported to other state and national jurisdictions,” according to Biofuelwatch.
”In combining extensive research with the leveraging of the California Public Records Act, a bedrock law for promoting transparency in state and local government, this report covers political and regulatory events that have not often been illuminated, some of it never before reported, and that in sum will provide a sobering take on California climate politics, with insights applicable elsewhere,” Biofuelwatch states.
The reporting exposes the same type of corruption and revolving doors behind two of the state's neoliberal projects that I have spent many hundreds of hours exposing - the oil industry-friendly Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative and the Big Ag and water contractor "partnership" with the State of California known as the Delta Tunnel/s project.
It is a hallmark of neoliberal California "environmental processes" that the polluters are put in charge of them because of the enormous sums of money they spend on lobbying and campaign spending in Sacramento. This is what I like to call “deep regulatory capture,” from top to bottom, as I have documented in hundreds of articles.
This report is a must-read for anybody who wants to learn about the ugly truth behind California's cap-and-trade scam. Download the report: FINAL_capturedfutures_Biofuelwatch.
Here's the summary of this exhaustive report from Biofuelwatch:
“While California state authorities continue to promote markets-based and technological approaches to advance ‘net zero’ as a primary focus for climate policy, grassroots organizations and climate justice stakeholders have increasingly mobilized in resistance to this polluter friendly approach to climate.
“In the interest of empowering grassroots activists that are working to resist climate alse solutions and address the broad array of public health and environmental crises bearing down on our communities, Biofuelwatch has released a report that serves as a window into the backroom dynamics that drive California climate politics, and the resultant state-facilitated policy agenda, often celebrated as an example for the world to emulate.
“The report — titled ‘Carbon Capture or Captured Futures? Fossil Fuel and Bioenergy Controls California “Getting to Neutral” Climate Policy’ — exposes the intricate workings of California’s policy making apparatus. The report describes how an elite group of private and public sector specialists has coordinated behind the scenes to promote unproven and dangerous carbon removal technologies in a multifaceted attempt to set the state climate policy table — and to establish a model that could be exported to other state and national jurisdictions.
“In combining extensive research with the leveraging of the California Public Records Act, a bedrock law for promoting transparency in state and local government, this report covers political and regulatory events that have not often been illuminated, some of it never before reported, and that in sum will provide a sobering take on California climate politics, with insights applicable elsewhere.
“Understanding the push for carbon capture for what it is and where it has come from is an important step in responding to powerful polluters as they manipulate genuine public concern about climate change to capture our imaginations, capture our democracy and capture our futures.
“By having information and clarity about how and why these approaches have become so dominant, advocates will be better prepared to counter the fallacies of the prevailing narratives of ‘net zero’ and ‘carbon neutrality’ and successfully organize for the holistic solutions that their communities design and support.”