We're All In on Proposition 4
TNC Supports Prop 4: A Climate Bond for Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness and Clean Air
What is Proposition 4?
Proposition 4 directs $10 billion in general obligation bonds to help prepare Californians for the impacts of climate change. It will protect our water quality, increase water supplies, prevent wildfires and reduce fire impacts, protect natural areas, and help frontline communities access safe drinking water, shade and green space.
Quote: Mike Sweeney
Prop 4 is essential for making California climate-ready. We need this bond to ensure clean drinking water and clean air, and prevent the worst effects of wildfires, floods and droughts. By supporting Prop 4, we are investing in a resilient future for all Californians.
Why Now?
California faces unprecedented challenges from climate change and the impact it is having on our natural resources. This bond will:
- Prevent Wildfires: Recent wildfires have devastated millions of acres, released toxic smoke, and polluted drinking water supplies. Wildfire smoke caused more than 50,000 premature deaths and more than $400 billion in economic harm in just one decade, according to a recent UCLA report. Proposition 4 will provide the necessary tools for firefighters to prevent wildfires and to reduce their impacts when they do occur.
- Ensure Clean Drinking Water: Nearly one million Californians currently lack access to safe drinking water. Proposition 4 helps connect these communities to safe drinking water supplies and helps additional water districts remove toxic PFAFs from their drinking water supplies. This bond addresses additional critical infrastructure risks and cleans up water supplies.
- Fight Extreme Heat: Rising temperatures pose significant health risks, especially to vulnerable populations like seniors and children. Proposition 4 will fund programs to help combat extreme heat and protect public health by increasing shade, building more cooling centers, and funding additional strategies.
- Combat Drought: Climate change is bringing a new, drier reality to California, punctuated by increasingly frequent and more intense storms, causing significant environmental, social, and economic impacts to our state. Proposition 4 will fund programs that build capacity to prepare for and respond to frequent and extreme droughts and storms, improve floodwater management and advance groundwater sustainability.
See How Prop 4 Makes a Difference
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Drinking Water Protections: $3.8 billion to remove toxic pollutants from our drinking water supplies and help ensure all Californians have safe drinking water in their homes. Proposition 4 also invests in water recycling and conservation to cost-effectively increase our water supplies and improves dam and levee safety to prevent floods.
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- Wildfire Prevention Measures: $1.5 billion to prevent wildfires, reduce their damage when they do occur, and improve disaster response.
- Extreme Heat Mitigation Programs: $450 million to develop and implement strategies to protect Californians from extreme heat.
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- Coastal Protection from Rising Sea Levels: $1.2 billion to safeguard coastal communities and resources from the impacts of sea-level rise.
- Funding for ocean recovery including acre-based targets for restoring ocean ecosystems such as kelp forests, eelgrass meadows and native oyster beds, as well as funding for climate-ready fisheries and protecting CA’s Channel Islands.
- Investments in improving ocean and beach conditions to reduce pollution and increase water quality for marine life.
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- Wildlife Protection and Nature-Based Climate Solutions: $1.2 billion to preserve wildlife habitats, implement nature-based solutions to climate change, and prevent extinctions.
- Climate-Smart Farms, Ranches, and Working Lands: $300 million to support sustainable agricultural practices.
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$700 million to enhance green spaces and ensure public access to natural areas.
Quote: Liz Forsburg Pardi
Proposition 4 represents the largest investment in conservation in our state’s history. It’s up to us to make sure the natural resources we all rely on are there for future generations. This bond is a critical step forward.
July 3, 2024 – The Nature Conservancy is excited to announce the passage of the $10 billion climate bond, Senate Bill 867 (now Proposition 4). This is a significant milestone toward a safer and more sustainable future for California. We express our sincere gratitude to:
- Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire
- Speaker Robert Rivas
- Senator Ben Allen
- Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia
- Senator Monique Limón
- Assemblymember Lori Wilson
- and the California Legislature
We thank them for their deep commitment to climate resilience. We are proud to entrust this monumental decision to California voters because climate change affects us all. We hope you’ll join us in supporting this historic measure.
California Needs a Climate Bond
California is leaving nature behind and putting people at risk. A series of budget cuts have significantly reduced funding for programs that forward nature-based climate solutions—cost-efficient and effective ways to prevent megafires, flooding and extreme heat.
Protections for nature should be a key part of California’s major funding priorities from mental health to education. But the state is cutting programs we can’t afford to lose, programs that make those priorities possible. To protect Californians, we need to pass the climate bond now.
CA Needs a Future Where People and Nature Thrive
Without intervention, the cost of climate change to California is estimated to reach $113 billion annually by 2050 (CNRA’s Fourth Climate Assessment). But we’re reaching that number much faster than anticipated. Last year's atmospheric rivers brought record snowfall, intense rain and severe flooding that resulted in damages for California totaling more than $4.6 billion
Our state can’t afford to keep cleaning up one disaster after the next. We need serious investments in nature-based climate solutions that PREVENT destruction, not expensive band-aids. Proposition 4 will provide critical funding to protect California’s iconic landscapes and native species, while also helping Californians adapt to the growing impacts of climate change.
California Needs...
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Public safety is extremely important to Californians, but climate impacts like heat, fire and flooding threaten well-being in multiple ways. The recent IPCC report shows that incidents of crime and domestic violence increase during extreme weather and heat events, and with the last eight years categorized as “the hottest year on record” California can’t afford to ignore the problem.
Nature’s Solution: Urban Tree Cover
Increasing urban tree cover can lower temperatures up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s a cheap and durable way to uplift neighborhoods and decrease crime.
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California’s drinking water relies on the health of our rivers and aquifers. But overpumping of groundwater and water diversions from rivers are drying up the water we all rely on.
Nature’s Solution: Functional Flows
The Nature Conservancy led a state-wide initiative to determine how much water our rivers and streams need to support nature and people. We have the answer, now it’s time to make sure nature gets that water. California must transition to a future where our rivers are managed to benefit wildlife, a move that coincidentally gives them the tools to use against extreme drought and flooding.
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Californians can’t function if we can’t breathe. Smoke from megafires is keeping us inside, shutting down schools and businesses and impacting our health. At the same time, megafires have displaced whole communities.
Nature’s Solution: Forest Restoration
Ecological forest restoration is proven to prevent megafires. This proactive management technique includes thinning and controlled burns and it preempts the need for fire suppression so Cal Fire and the US Forest Service can better spend their resources.
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California is in a mental health crisis. Nearly 1 in 7 adults in our state experience a mental illness, and 1 in 14 children have an emotional disturbance that limits functioning (California Health Care Foundation). Access to nature is proven to positively impact mental health, but open space is less available to the Californians who need it most. At the same time, poorly planned development is eating into natural areas, removing open space access and increasing wildfire risk.
Nature’s Solution: Open Space Around Cities
TNC has a plan to protect the natural lands that matter to Californians and sustain the native species with whom we share this state. Creating open space around communities not only improves mental health and protects wildlife, it saves lives in the face of wildfire. We’re working with the Paradise Rec and Park District to design an open space buffer for the new city plan that will reduce wildfire risk by nearly 70%.
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What are Nature-Based Climate Solutions?
Conservation projects that store carbon and protect against the effects of climate change. Restored forests can prevent megafires. Wetlands and dunes insulate us from sea-level rise. And open space benefits us all.
Nature-Based Climate Priorities
California Needs Healthy Natural Lands
California made a historic commitment to protect 30% of its natural lands by 2030, but acres alone are not enough. To protect California’s rich diversity of plants and animals, we need to make sure we are protecting lands across all habitat types and managing these lands effectively.
California relies on a wide diversity of plants, animals and habitats to protect us from disease and the effects of climate change, but only three out of California’s eight major ecosystem types are currently protected under the state’s 30% protection milestones.
The climate bond will ensure that we have the funding to support all of California's rich and diverse habitats.
California Needs Healthy Oceans
Oceans produce 50% of the air we breathe and support over one million jobs in our state. But our oceans are under threat.
Beginning in 2014, a perfect storm of climate-driven events resulted in the loss of 96% of our state’s kelp forests on California’s north coast. This devastated the ecosystem and the local economy.
California Needs Healthy Rivers
It’s time to manage California’s water for the realities of climate change.
Weather whiplash illustrates the dramatic extremes of California’s climate and requires a new approach to water management. We’ve altered how much water is flowing in California's streams, leaving them unprepared for extreme rain events like atmospheric rivers or for devastating droughts. The Nature Conservancy’s science shows that restoring natural systems can protect our water supplies and knowing when and where nature needs water will allow us to reconcile California’s water needs with the realities of climate change.
The Nature Conservancy is supporting policies that enable communities to start planning for droughts while keeping enough water instream. This protects keystone species like salmon and supports California’s freshwater ecosystems from riverside forests to wetlands.
California needs Proposition 4
Paid for by The Nature Conservancy.
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