California’s Climate Bond: An Environmental Justice Perspective 

The following is based on an in-depth conversation with Nataly Escobedo Garcia, Policy Coordinator – Water, Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability in December 2024.

Climate change is well and truly here in California – but a coalition of 180 groups, including grassroots environmental justice organizations and large environmental organizations, are using their combined power to help increase our state’s defenses against its worst impacts. 

In recent times, our state has lurched between environmental disasters, including the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles County and the massive statewide flooding caused by atmospheric rivers in late 2022 and early 2023. At the same time, we’ve had to deal with more long-term climate threats like decades of regional megadrought that destabilizes our water supply and the worsening coastal erosion that threatens the existence of our famous golden beaches. One common thread is clear: climate change has made all of these events more extreme, more deadly, and more costly, impacting the lives of all Californians. 

Perhaps it is this sense of shared impact that led California voters to approve Proposition 4 in November 2024, even as other more progressive measures failed at the ballot box. Proposition 4 authorized the state to borrow $10 billion in bonds for important climate projects, including in part: 

• $1.5 billion for wildfire prevention,
• $1.14 billion to reduce flood risk, 
• $1.89 billion to protect and increase the state’s water supply, and 
• $1.2 billion to increase coastal resiliency. 

Both the sweeping scale of the bond and its success at the ballot box owe its existence to environmental justice and traditional environmental groups – environmental partners who at times conflict with each other but who came together here. Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability is one environmental justice organization that was a key member of this coalition. Leadership Counsel works in Inland California to support community strength and co-powerment; to increase community access to decision-making; and to respect, elevate, and protect the interests of historically excluded communities. We spoke with Leadership Counsel’s Nataly Escobedo Garcia to learn more about the story of the climate bond – how it came to be, what successes it reflects, and potential improvements for similar funding in the future: 

The climate bond first came up in 2023 at a time of increased climate urgency and tough state budgetary times. Nataly and Leadership Counsel began to engage with legislators, their communities, and smaller partner organizations on the ground to gauge appetite for a potential bill. While the bill didn’t end up moving through the state legislature until 2024, these early conversations were important to establish community priorities in the San Joaquin Valley and the Inland Empire (drinking water, wastewater, and extreme heat). As Nataly shared with us, “One of the reasons why [Leadership Counsel’s] legislative work can be more effective is because we do have an immense responsibility to the people that we are directly in conversation with.”

At the same time, other advocates were also gearing up for the climate bond process – including both environmental justice groups like the California Environmental Justice Alliance and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), and traditional environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, and Nature Conservancy. Although their environmental priorities sometimes greatly differ, more than 180 groups were able to put together a draft in late 2023 that they could broadly agree upon, with the idea that acting in coalition would lead to more success with the legislature. Different organizations then facilitated moving different pieces of the climate bond forward in negotiations, with Nataly and Leadership Counsel being heavily involved in the water and extreme heat pieces that reflected their communities’ priorities.  

The resulting climate bond, in Nataly’s eyes, was a mixed bag. 

Environmental justice communities were successful in getting substantial funding for their drinking water and wastewater priorities. Leadership Counsel’s consistent communication throughout the process with their constituent communities gave those communities the chance to be heavily involved in the process. This was a particular priority for Nataly, to “not just move forward their priorities, but to encourage them to advocate for themselves and be able to stand in the truth that they have the right to.” 

However, they didn’t get the desired extreme heat mitigation funding into the bond. The final funding number for extreme heat in the bond was just under half of the coalition’s initial ask. Although the health impacts are apparent, Leadership Counsel found it a difficult argument to make to legislators without hard numbers. As a result of the relative underfunding of extreme heat, Leadership Counsel ultimately did not endorse the climate bond proposition. 

While it’s important that the funding has allocations for frontline environmental justice communities, Nataly expressed some concern about how effective the allocation could be. The final bill allocates 40% of funding for each funding type to projects that “directly and meaningfully benefit” disadvantaged communities (as defined by CalEnviroScreen). Although a noble goal, it might prove difficult. For example, low-income communities in rural California might need a lot more funding for drinking water, for example, than they do for coastal resilience. Environmental justice groups wanted a more targeted approach to create specific equity programs to better match needs. Rural groups are also concerned that this less targeted approach could reinforce perceived and actual concerns about funding overlooking more rural areas, and flowing instead mainly to the bigger metropoles. 

As Nataly characterizes it: “As a state, our idea of climate equity still seems to be heavily focused on…urban California. Inland California still doesn’t really seem to be a part of that definition.” Moving forward, it will be crucial to advocate for equitable and targeted climate funding for those in California who are most affected – especially as the second Trump Administration has moved to strip funding and focus away from climate and environmental justice.

The people of California have collectively chosen to continue the fight against climate change in our state by approving this new $10 billion climate bond. That by itself is a victory. But if California is to stand once again as a state of resistance and progress, we must ensure that it’s a victory that protects, benefits, and uplifts all of us in an ever-changing world. More funding to address climate change by itself does not solve the issue. We must continue to build power for systemic changes that address the root causes of climate change and environmental disparities. We have to listen to communities so that funding can be directed in a way that makes a tangible difference in the lived experiences of all Californians – especially those left behind or kept behind. And we must encourage our leadership to stay strong in the face of strong headwinds that would seek to reverse the progress we have won. Only then will this climate bond be a transformative moment for California’s environment – and its people.