The Big Story 

Californians are bracing this week for an incoming heat wave, which could accelerate snowmelt and exacerbate flood conditions in many communities.  

© Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP

“The big warm up starts today, with many inland areas hitting the 80-degree mark, and the lower deserts getting into the upper 90s,” the National Weather Service’s (NWS) San Diego branch tweeted Wednesday.

The heat wave is the result of a high-pressure system that could strengthen over the weekend — heating up inland areas more than the coast, according to the NWS.

In Southern California’s Coachella Valley, temperatures could climb up to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, the agency warned. 

While the weather is expected to cool down next week, the heat may be sufficient to begin melting the massive amounts of snow that piled up on California mountainsides this winter.  

“This is no longer just a warmish spell,” University of California, Los Angeles climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a video Monday, pointing to “genuinely hot” areas inland by mid-late this week.

Inland areas that could be affected by this “fairly substantial early season heat wave” include parts of Central California’s San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada foothills, according to Swain.

These are some of the same areas that have concerned both local officials and scientists when it comes to the inevitable spring snowmelt and consequent flooding.

“In the context of what we have right now, which is still a record-breaking snowpack in the southern Sierra, this is going to rapidly accelerate snowmelt,” Swain said. 

“Snowmelt has already been occurring at an increasing pace in recent days,” he continued. “A lot of rivers that are currently fairly high but well within their banks might exceed flood stage by later this week.” 

In anticipation of the spring and summer deluge, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday toured Central California’s Tulare Basin, which has already been affected by flooding.  

As Sierra Nevada snowmelt escalates in the coming weeks, this San Joaquin Valley agricultural powerhouse will likely incur further inundation and destruction.

“You can look at a scene like this and think the worst is going to recede, that the worst is behind us, when in fact, quite the contrary,” Newsom said at a Tuesday press conference. 

“Every day you’re seeing incremental — a half inch, an inch — of more water, new water present itself here in this basin,” the governor added. 

Newsom stressed the importance of being vigilant and continuing to provide support to the region, where floods are destroying farmlands, harming businesses and dislocating homeowners.

“All of us are mindful of the impacts of neglect,” he added. “All of us are mindful of the impacts of delay. And so there is a sense of urgency.”

Welcome to The Hill’s Sustainability newsletter, we’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin — every week we follow the latest moves in the growing battle over sustainability in the U.S. and around the world.

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Essential Reads 

Latest news impacting sustainability this week and beyond:

Flooding from melting snow closes most of Yosemite National Park

Bringing climate risk home, one property at a time

Forced conservation measures made Californians more ‘water-wise’: study

EV growth is driving auto suppliers out of the market: report

Climate Price Tag 

© AP

Each year that the U.S. accelerates the deployment of clean energy would save the economy $9 billion, a new report has found. 

Delaying an ambitious start to such action into the 2030s, by contrast, would cost the economy $1.3 trillion by 2050, according to the report, released Wednesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  

Recipe for success: Delivering a clean tech economy will require the “right policies to cut carbon pollution from vehicles, buildings and power plants, safeguard more forests and farmland, and get new transmission lines built,” NRDC climate director Kit Kennedy said in a statement. 

Policy wish list. The environmental nonprofit is pushing for a range of federal policies, including: 

• Higher efficiency and electrification standards for buildings 
• Federal and state action to build more transmission lines faster
• Permanent protections for 30 percent of the U.S. by 2030
• More stringent federal regulations around emissions from cars, trucks and electric plants

Falling behind: The Biden administration has committed to reaching net-zero — no new carbon emissions — by 2050.

U.S. emissions are projected to drop to 25 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

But that progress is just half of what the U.S. committed to in the Paris Climate agreement in 2015, the EIA noted.  

“Right now, we are not on the path to net zero,” NRDC co-author Amanda Levin wrote.  

Shrinking window: “The longer the U.S. waits to make transformational climate progress, the fewer pathways remain viable, and the more expensive the remaining pathways become,” Levin said.

Scaling up electricity: Because any increase in renewable energy still needs to be transmitted to consumers, the NRDC says an immediate priority should be dramatically scaling up the grid.

Transmission capacity needs to grow 9 percent per year through the rest of the decade — more than four times its historic annual growth rate of 2 percent, the authors wrote. 

A caveat around fuel: Carbon-free fuels — either converted to emission-free hydrogen or cleaned up with carbon capture — have a role to play, the report found.

But to avoid raising emissions, those technologies must be highly targeted to sectors in which electrification is impossible or very inefficient, according to the NRDC. 

• Such industries could include concrete production, aviation or heavy shipping.
• The technologies should not be used in powering buildings, the electric grid or cars — where clean energy advocates generally argue that electrification is a much better solution. 

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