California cut statewide greenhouse gas emissions by 3.9% in 2024 while state gross product grew 3.2%, according to California Air Resources Board figures announced by the Governor’s office on September 21. The announcement puts emissions 28% below their 2004 peak.
Transportation recorded the largest total decrease. The Governor’s office attributes it to rising use of renewable diesel and zero-emission vehicles. Power-sector emissions fell even as total electricity generation increased, which the announcement credits to continued expansion of renewables and battery storage. Industrial, agricultural, and commercial and residential emissions also declined.
The supporting figures describe the system that produced the change. The announcement reports 67% clean energy at the end of 2024, 21,860 megawatts of battery storage, 2.7 million zero-emission vehicles sold, 216,445 public and shared chargers, and 70% renewable diesel.
It also reports 552,300 clean energy workers in California, which it says is nearly double the number in Texas, and says that workforce grew by roughly 7,300 in 2024.
CARB Chair Lauren Sanchez framed the result as a long-running wager. "Twenty years ago, we bet that tackling climate change would make California stronger. The results speak for themselves; emissions falling, our economy growing, and our air getting cleaner," she said.
The numbers sit against three statutory targets. AB 32, signed in 2006, required a return to 1990 emission levels by 2020, which the announcement says the state met in 2014. SB 32, signed in 2016, requires 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. AB 1279, signed in 2022, requires net carbon neutrality by 2045 alongside an 85% emissions reduction.
Two limits are worth holding onto. An inventory is backward-looking accounting for a single year, so a one-year decline does not by itself establish whether the 2030 target is within reach. And the underlying data is not yet public in the usual place: the Air Resources Board’s current inventory page still publishes the 2000 to 2023 series, the 2025 edition, so the 2024 figures announced this week cannot yet be checked line by line against it.
Sources & methodology
This report was written from the primary materials below. Links open at the original publisher.
Office of the Governor of California: California cut climate pollution again as economy keeps growing California Air Resources Board: Current California GHG Emission Inventory DataSee something we should correct? Read our corrections policy.