WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: California racked up a series of big climate wins this week, including new technology that cuts emissions from making cement and groundbreaking a clean energy project in tribal communities.

SACRAMENTO – This was a very good week for the climate in California, keeping up the fight to protect our communities from the climate crisis and accelerating the transition to clean energy.

Court reaffirms California’s right to fight vehicle pollution. California won a major legal victory to protect communities from dirty air and the climate crisis, defeating the fossil fuel industry. The federal appeals court reaffirmed our decades-old authority to innovate new clean-car standards to cut the world’s biggest source of pollution.

Making cleaner, greener cement. Roughly 8% of global emissions are caused by manufacturing, one of the larger contributors to the climate crisis. A California startup that just opened in Redding developed innovative technology to cut these emissions, capturing the carbon dioxide from when the cement is made and using it to make more cement.

Clean energy in tribal communities. A cutting-edge microgrid project funded by a $32 million state grant will support energy sovereignty and sustainable economic growth for the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, one of the largest to benefit a California Native American tribe.

$75 million for clean water innovation. California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is pioneering cutting-edge technologies to produce more clean water, everything from wastewater recycling to desalination to water efficiency. The U.S. Department of Energy announced $75 million to continue these innovations, on top of $2.5 million the state invested in this program.

$58 million for climate-resilient infrastructure. The Biden-Harris Administration announced that California received six grants to protect infrastructure from the climate crisis, funding projects in California to upgrade roads, protect against flooding, improve safety, and more.

Leading the country in solar power. A new report showed that California is a solar superpower, leading the nation with 68,816 gigawatt-hours of electricity produced by the sun – a 9% increase from the previous year. And, the state’s grid broke a record for solar generation, with 17,170 megawatts on Wednesday afternoon; the next day another record was set by the grid, with 86% of demand being served by solar generation.

First EV freight truck crosses the U.S.-Mexico border. New EV charging infrastructure, which was funded by a California climate grant, and a partnership between SDG&E and Bali Express has resulted in a significant milestone in binational relations and clean energy – the first of many EV freight trucks to transport goods between the United States and Mexico.

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