I am a climate law researcher. The idea for this site was born from my frustrations in that context.
The state of California has a lot of information on how it is performing in terms of meeting its climate goals, but this data is not always easy to find. While there is significant transparency in California regarding its climate policies, in the sense that there are lots of laws requiring study and publication of emission reductions, policy effectiveness, and the like, there is no page where all of this data is collected on one website. Most people don’t even know about the studies and reports they are so buried. It’s frustrating for me when I have to hunt them down all the time and I imagine it might be frustrating for others. I felt like the transparency in practice was missing as a result.
To address this issue, this website has been created to provide a concise, hopefully easy-to-use overview of most of the major sources of climate law data and reporting from state regulators and state watchdogs. By compiling and regularly updating information on certain key state policies and actors, the website aims to provide both casual readers and researchers with straightforward access to the full scope of California’s climate reporting. Readers can get a general understanding of the sources of data and reporting by exploring the pages of this website and more detailed information on these reports and data by following links provided.
This site may change over time, and it may not. But for the time being, the I will include (1) a brief description of each entity tasked with reporting on the effectiveness of California’s climate policy and (2) links to their reports, or whatever form the information is available. For some, there are no reports and the information is buried in meeting agendas or videos of public meetings.
Someday, maybe, I’ll expand the site to include more functionality like news reports, conferences, and other information like podcasts and the like, but that would be way down the line.
Thanks being here. We’re all in this together.