But the bulk of its investment will go toward projects meant to help Californians adapt to the effects of climate change.
The measure includes $3.8 billion for drinking-water and groundwater projects, $1.5 billion for wildfire and forest programs, $1.2 billion for coastal resilience against sea-level rise, and roughly $500 million to reduce extreme heat exposure for communities.
Of the 10 deadliest wildfires in California’s history, six have occurred since 2017, spurred by increasingly extreme shifts between drought and precipitation. More than 725,000 state residents are served by water systems that don’t meet state drinking-water safety and reliability requirements, with climate change–driven drought increasingly stressing aquifers. And extreme heat is on the rise in the U.S. West and across the globe.
The bond will help backfill some gaps left by budget cuts this year, which slashed roughly $12 billion from Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2022 California Climate Commitment to spend $54 billion over five years on everything from zero-emissions vehicles to land-based carbon sequestration.
Those cuts “led to the cancellation of many programs that communities rely on to provide essential resilience funding,” said Daniel Barad, Western states policy manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists. The $10 billion bond will allow many of the already planned projects to be completed, and “also has the advantage of giving greater stability to certain government programs, ensuring that funds are distributed evenly when they are most needed,” he said.
Lower-income communities and communities of color are among those at greatest risk from these changing conditions. Proposition 4 will direct at least 40 percent of its funds to “directly benefit communities that have lower incomes or are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change,” according to the state Legislative Analyst’s Office.
“For years, Californians have been urging our elected officials to do more to prepare for the climate crisis,” said Baani Behniwal, who works on natural carbon sequestration for The Climate Center. With new funding for “clean air and water, solutions to extreme heat, wildfire readiness, and climate-beneficial agriculture, our leaders can now do more to address some of the most pressing issues facing the state.”
But $10 billion is “not enough to guarantee safety, resilience, and security in the face of growing climate extremes,” Bahniwal added. “The more our state invests today, the more lives and dollars we will save for years to come.”
