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In 2006, California set itself an ambitious environmental goal: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The Air Resources Board recently published its assessment of 2016 – and the state has already hit its 2020 target. California is on a low-carbon diet, so to speak, and the diet is working.

Emissions from California’s power sector have dropped 35 per cent, while emissions from transportation fell only slightly. California has aggressive targets for renewable energy in its power generation mix, and the state is blessed with sun, wind, and innovative companies willing and able to build what’s needed to achieve a power mix that will eventually be more than half zero-emissions.

California achieved this milestone – a 13-per-cent reduction in emissions from their peak in 2004 – while its economy expanded by 26 per cent.

Emissions didn’t fall in every sector. In fact, agriculture, recycling and waste, and so-called “high global-warming potential” gases all showed increased emissions. Those gases, in fact, more than negate improvements in the industrial, commercial and residential sectors.

Part of the reason for the decrease was California’s cap-and-trade program, launched in 2013 and designed to help lower its greenhouse gas emissions. California’s program is the fourth largest in the world, following the cap-and-trade programs of the European Union, the Republic of Korea and the Chinese province of Guangdong. In addition to driving emissions cuts in one of the world’s largest economies, California’s program provides critical experience in creating and managing an economywide cap-and-trade system.

The previous Liberal government of Ontario signed a cap-and-trade linking agreement with California and Quebec last year. It came into effect on Jan. 1 but the new Progressive Conservative government of Doug Ford plans to kill it.

California’s story is one of significant decarbonization in electricity, modest reductions in transportation emissions, negligible reductions from industry and buildings and a tripling of emissions of gases with high global-warming potential.

Transportation emissions could continue to decrease, with higher fuel-efficiency standards (provided Washington doesn’t invalidate them) and more electric vehicles on the roads.

There’s another green shoot, albeit a tiny one, in that transportation story: substituting for cars.

Santosh Rao, a policy researcher at Uber, just published a report on the company’s electric-bike and hailed-car use patterns in San Francisco. He found that as a percentage of total rides, bike usage peaks during daylight commuting hours, while cars peak after dark.

Moreover, Mr. Rao found that on one particularly rainy day in April, Jump electric-bicycle trips were 78 per cent lower than the Friday average. On the other hand, Uber trips saw a 40-per-cent increase, which means, instead of being stranded, some of these riders replaced their usual Friday Jump trips with an Uber ride. Riders were able to switch seamlessly between modes and reliably get to their desired destination.

This substitution effect is starting from a tiny and obviously urban base in California. But swapping a heavy internal-combustion automobile for a lightweight electric bike means a massive reduction in energy consumption for doing the same job of moving a person around.

California’s energy and emissions diet is working. Right now, transport substitution is a minuscule new feature in that diet, but it has much room to grow.

Bloomberg News, with files from The Canadian Press

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