California will now be the nation’s example for reducing climate change after Governor Jerry Brown signed sweeping legislation yesterday. AirTalk spoke with Sacramento Bee reporter David Siders, environmental policy analyst Chris Busch, and local business advocate Louis Baglietto about what the California’s new climate change law means and what you need to know about it.

California will become a petri dish for international efforts to slow global warming under legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday, forcing one of the world’s largest economies to squeeze into a dramatically smaller carbon footprint. The legislation, SB 32, requires the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.

British utility regulators are in the midst of a major change as they seek to spur £32 billion of upgrades to the country’s aging distribution networks by decade’s end. To achieve its goals, the government’s utility regulator, Ofgem, has put the responsibility squarely on the utilities, which need to develop robust business plans informed by engagement with their customers.

Following more than a year of legislative toing and froing, California’s leaders agreed this week on how ambitious the state will be in the fight against climate change after 2020. The legislation will require Californian agencies take steps needed to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by 40 percent in 2030, compared with 1990 levels.

California lawmakers cast key votes Tuesday for ambitious climate pollution reduction goals after 2020 — shortly before learning that an auction held under a program designed to help achieve those goals had flopped, hinting at major challenges ahead.

The EPA and the U.S. Transportation Department on Tuesday issued regulations that require trucks become more efficient through 2027. The final rules achieve 10 percent more carbon emission and fuel-consumption reductions than last year’s proposed rules, likely raising the price tag price for such vehicles but cutting operating costs.

California companies that refine gas, make cheese and build satellites may face bigger bills in the state’s underperforming cap-and-trade market very soon. But their counterparts that extract oil from the earth, turn wood into paper or produce fertilizer are in line for a longer cap-and-trade honeymoon.

A major player in California’s electricity system has opened its arms to the concept of using batteries — whether mounted on a garage wall or inside an electric vehicle — and other small-scale technology to help the grid.

The experts the Chinese government relies upon to advise on energy planning say the world’s largest emitter is on track to stop growing its greenhouse gas output as much as a decade earlier than promised. Jiang Kejun, a lead researcher at the Beijing-based Energy Research Institute, said China would “for sure” outperform its Paris pledge to peak emissions by 2030.

On July 7th, the Chinese government endorsed a set of policies aimed at peaking greenhouse gas emissions by 2029 — at no additional costs. Energy Innovation’s Energy Policy Simulator measured the combined effects of 35 climate, energy, and environmental policies across more than 10,000 scenarios.