California Governor Jerry Brown [official website] on Monday signed Senate Bill 1383 [legislative materials], which sets new state goals for cutting pollutants like methane, hydrofluorocarbons and soot, also referred to as black carbons [LAT report]. While comparing the fight against climate change to Noah’s ark, Brown said that reducing this “short lived” climate pollution will help the battle. The purpose of SB 1383 is “to achieve a reduction in methane by 40%, hydrofluorocarbon gases by 40%, and anthropogenic black carbon by 50% below 2013 levels by 2030.”

This is only the most recent in a series of bills related to climate change signed by Governor Brown. Earlier this month Brown signed into law [JURIST report] two bills that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030. At least since 1992, with the UN Conference on Environment and Development, treaties [JURIST backgrounder] on climate change have bolstered multi-national commitment to combating climate change. On the state level, California has finalized many pieces of legislation seeking to reduce greenhouse gasses and other alleged contributors to climate change for the last decade or more. The state introduced the Clean Car Law in 2002 and the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006. In the past year, Brown has traveled to the UN headquarters in New York, the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, the Vatican in Italy and the Climate Summit of the Americas in Toronto, Canada [press releases] to urge other leaders to fight against climate change with the same intensity as California.