The California Air Resources Board has adopted the nation's most comprehensive global warming plan. It outlines ways that individuals and businesses will meet the goals of the state's landmark 2006 climate change law, and recognizes that a balanced mix of strategies is the best way to cut emissions and grow a clean economy. The central component of the plan is a cap-and-trade program covering 85 percent of the state's emissions.

Additional key recommendations include strategies to enhance and expand proven cost-saving energy efficiency programs; implementation of California's clean cars standards; increases in the amount of clean and renewable energy used to power the state; and implementation of a low-carbon fuel standard that will make fuels used in the state cleaner.

The plan proposes full deployment of the California Solar Initiative, high-speed rail, water-related energy efficiency measures and a range of regulations to reduce emissions from trucks and from ships docked in California ports. There are also measures designed to safely reduce or recover a range of very potent greenhouse gases -- refrigerants and other industrial gases -- that contribute to global warming at a level many times greater than carbon dioxide.

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