Opinion: California’s climate decisions today can address tomorrow’s problems

In the wake of one of the most consequential elections in American history, California looms large. What occurs here is happening to roughly one in every eight Americans — and what’s happening in California is climate change.

The summer of 2024 was the hottest on record globally. Here in California, residents sweltered through the hottest July the state had ever experienced. And one of the most important ways California is experiencing climate change is in its water.

The state’s naturally volatile climate is facing whiplash like it’s never seen before. Increasingly intense droughts are being followed by major floods. Snowpack is diminishing, and sea level is rising. Vegetation is drying out, exacerbating severe wildfires that occur earlier than ever each season. Everyone is feeling the effects, though low-income, underserved communities — many of color — are feeling it most acutely. And rising temperatures are driving these changes.

Fortunately, California is a national and international leader in climate mitigation, reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are leading to a warmer planet. Yet even if global emissions drop precipitously tomorrow, the next several decades of climate change are already locked in.

California will be managing its water under changing conditions for the indefinite future.

The state has taken important steps to adapt to climate change’s effects on water, but as Public Policy Institute of California researchers argued in a new report, it’s not yet on the right trajectory to manage some of the changes underway — or the greater challenges ahead.

The good news is that California can make significant progress when it pays attention to a problem. Urban water use has remained flat since 1990, despite millions of new residents, which is a testament to the power of California’s famed innovation and creative thinking. The state is also undertaking difficult but necessary work to improve management of its vitally important groundwater resources, as well as the headwater forests that supply some two-thirds of the state’s water.

While this work isn’t easy, it’s pointing in the right direction.

But there are two areas where major overhaul is needed: freshwater ecosystems and flood management. More than a century of land and water management has left our rivers, wetlands and estuaries in bad shape. Even without climate change, many of these ecosystems are becoming unable to supply clean water, protect us from floods or support California’s diverse and unique native fish and other wildlife. Warming and its effects are only making conditions worse.

Perhaps the most worrisome issue is flood management. The increasing likelihood of large floods is largely ignored, and we continue to put homes and businesses in areas that face high flood risk today or in the future. This, as we saw with the hurricanes that devastated the southeastern U.S. this fall, is a recipe for dangerous, damaging floods.

But it’s not all doom and gloom: California is a state of dreamers and doers, and this is a time to set our sights high.

We can make floods less destructive, using them to bolster the water we store underground. We can retool agriculture for 21st-century water scarcity. We can craft policy that prioritizes frontline communities. And we can undertake larger-scale restoration projects that restore the natural processes of our headwater forests and freshwater ecosystems.

As we’ve seen on the Klamath River — where a salmon found its way upstream just weeks after the final dam came down — if you build it, they will come.

While the federal approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation will likely change under the new administration, California can continue to lead. We have access to significant resources and we can find opportunities in climate adaptation, as we have in the transition to clean energy.

We can — and must — meet the challenges of today with adaptations that address the problems of tomorrow.

Letitia Grenier is the director of the Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy Center. She wrote this column for CalMatters.