CARB outlines 2022 scoping plan path to carbon neutrality; projects steep drops in fossil gas use

California Air Resources Board staff presented the agency’s 2022 Scoping Plan scenario at a California Public Utilities Commission workshop, describing how the plan would move the state toward carbon neutrality by 2045 and sharply reduce fossil gas use across multiple sectors.

The scoping plan scenario assumes aggressive electrification, a large build‑out of renewable electricity and new low‑carbon fuels such as renewable hydrogen, and an increase in nature‑based carbon removals. CARB staff said the plan calls for electricity demand to nearly double and for fossil gas use in buildings and industry to fall dramatically by mid‑century.

The scenario presented by CARB sets out several headline metrics and outcomes. Staff said the scenario would reduce fossil gas demand in buildings and industry by roughly 80–91 percent in the decades ahead compared with current levels, depending on the sector, and would lower fossil gas use in the electric sector as renewables and other zero‑carbon resources scale up. CARB staff identified renewable hydrogen and mechanical carbon dioxide removal as important components to reach the state’s net‑zero goal.

CARB described the scoping plan as an economy‑wide, technology‑neutral pathway informed by statutes and executive orders. The plan includes: meeting the governor’s zero‑emission vehicle goals (eliminating new sales of internal combustion vehicles over time); deploying millions of heat pumps and climate‑ready homes; and pursuing large‑scale land‑management strategies to enhance carbon sinks. CARB staff said the plan models increases in offshore wind, solar, storage, hydrogen gas turbines and demand response to meet resource adequacy while restricting new gas‑fired generation consistent with state directives.

During the presentation, CARB staff gave several numerical examples from the scoping plan model: widespread building electrification (including modeling of all‑electric new construction beginning mid‑2020s), deployment assumptions that support millions of heat pumps by 2030, and an expectation that certain industrial processes with high heat needs may shift to hydrogen or other low‑carbon fuels. Staff also highlighted an integrated air‑quality and health analysis that estimated substantial public‑health benefits and large annual avoided health costs under the modeled scenario.

Stakeholders on the webinar raised questions about timing, technology readiness, transmission and the availability of clean fuels. CARB staff and CPUC commissioners emphasized that the scoping plan provides a high‑level pathway and that more granular, localized and rate‑level analysis would follow in agency planning and regulatory venues. CARB staff said some of the scoping plan’s hydrogen and carbon‑removal assumptions were modeled with simplifications intended for a statewide, long‑horizon plan and that further study remains under separate SB 1075 and agency efforts.

The CARB presentation concluded with staff pointing workshop participants to public datasets and modeling outputs posted on CARB’s website for users who wish to inspect the underlying scenario assumptions and outputs.