(Reuters) - California on Monday moved to restrict air pollutants from sources as diverse as diesel trucks and cow flatulence, the latest of several efforts in the most populous U.S. state to reduce emissions leading to climate change. 
 
 Dairy cows feed in Chino, California April 25, 2012. REUTERS/Alex Gallardo 
 
 Under a bill signed Monday by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, the state will cut emissions of methane from dairy cows and other animals by 40 percent and black carbon from diesel trucks and other sources by 50 percent. The bill also mandates the state to reduce emissions of fluorinated gases, or hydrofluorocarbons used in refrigeration. 
 
 The measure comes on the heels of several climate-change bills signed in recent weeks by Brown, including one that by 2030 will mandate an overall reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below the level released in 1990. 
 
 “We’re protecting people’s lungs, their health by cutting out a poisonous chemical that comes out of diesel trucks,” Brown said at a signing ceremony in the Los Angeles suburb of Long Beach, where trucks at the nation’s largest port complex spew particulate matter, including black carbon, along clogged freeways, contributing to high rates of asthma and other conditions in some of the region’s poorest areas. 
 
 “It goes from some machine, into the air and into your lungs,” Brown said. 
 
 The pollutants targeted in the bill signed Monday differ from carbon dioxide and other pollutants associated with global warming in that they remain in the atmosphere a relatively short time. However, these emissions have heat-trapping effects, so reducing their presence can help fight climate change, Brown said. 
 
 In addition to black carbon, which comes from trucks as well as the burning of organic material and other sources, the bill also requires reductions in hydrofluorocarbons, used in refrigeration and to power aerosol products. 
 
 It would also require the state’s dairy industry, which produces 20 percent of the country’s milk, to find a way to reduce methane produced by cow flatulence and manure. 
 
 One technology for doing that is known as a methane digester, which turns the gas into usable fuel. Such equipment is expensive, however, which worries the state’s dairy farmers. 
 
 “This mandated 40 percent reduction in methane and 50 percent reduction in anthropogenic black carbon gas represents a direct assault on California’s dairy industry and will hurt manufacturing,” a small-business group, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said in a news release. 
 
 But Brown said the mandates will lead the state to develop better technology and boost the economy. ||||| SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will begin regulating greenhouse-gas emissions tied to dairy cows and landfills under legislation signed Monday by Gov. Jerry Brown, escalating state efforts to fight climate change beyond carbon-based gases to include methane and other pollutants. 
 
 The law targets a category of gases known as short-lived climate pollutants, which have an outsize effect on global warming despite their relatively short life in the atmosphere. Environmentalists hope that tackling short-lived pollutants now would buy time to develop new and more affordable technology to reduce carbon emissions. 
 
 California has stoked a global reputation for its attempts to slow climate change through a combination of strict mandates against pollution and financial incentives for green technology. 
 
 The new law requires steep reductions in a variety of pollutants, including methane; HFC gases used in aerosols and air conditioning refrigerants; and soot, known as black carbon. It's tied to $90 million in funding for the dairy industry and garbage collectors. 
 
 "This bill curbs these dangerous pollutants and thereby protects public health and slows climate change," the Democratic governor said in a statement. 
 
 Republicans said the strict regulations will hurt agricultural businesses, despite concessions made to dairy farmers. 
 
 Dairy farmers will be required to reduce methane emissions from manure to 40 percent below their 2013 levels by 2030, with the help of $50 million from the state's fee charged to polluters, known as cap-and-trade. 
 
 The money will help a handful of them buy dairy digesters, which use methane from manure to generate energy that's sold to electrical utilities. 
 
 The law also allows the Air Resources Board to regulate cow flatulence if there's viable technology to reduce it. 
 
 The law "represents a direct assault on California's dairy industry and will hurt manufacturing by creating an arbitrary limit on natural gases which dissipate quickly," said Tom Scott, California director for the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business advocacy group. 
 
 Lawmakers approved the measure on the last day of the legislative session after Brown negotiated a compromise with dairy farmers, some environmental groups and the bill's author, Democratic Sen. Ricardo Lara of Bell Gardens, almost exclusively with Democratic support. 
 
 "With these bold and ambitious goals, we'll continue to set the standard for climate policy worldwide," Lara said in a statement. 
 
 While some environmental groups supported the legislation, others were angry that Brown and Lara made concessions to ease the transition for the dairy industry, including postponing mandates until 2024. 
 
 The new law also pushes for a significant increase in composting to reduce organic waste, which emits methane when it breaks down in landfills. It calls for a boost of 50 percent within four years. 
 
 The governor and Democratic-controlled Legislature have significantly expanded the effort this year to combat climate change. Earlier this month, Brown signed legislation setting a new goal of reducing California's carbon emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. ||||| Calif., Gov. Jerry Brown, center, flanked by Senate President pro tempore Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, right, and Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, left, speaks during a news conference prior... (Associated Press) 
 
 LOS ANGELES (AP) — A decade ago, California vowed to dramatically slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. 
 
 With the nation's most populous state on pace to meet that target, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday charted a new goal to further cut carbon pollution by extending and expanding the landmark climate change law. 
 
 It will "keep California on the move to clean up the environment," Brown said in a Los Angeles park before signing a pair of bills that survived heavy opposition from the oil industry, business groups and Republicans. 
 
 Experts said going forward will be more challenging because the new goal — to reduce emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 — is considerably more ambitious and many of the easy solutions have been employed. 
 
 "The long and the short of it is that meeting the goal will require sustained regulatory effort across all sectors of the economy," said Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles. 
 
 California is on track to meet the 2020 climate goal that called for reducing emissions to 1990 levels by restricting the carbon content of gasoline and diesel fuel, encouraging sales of zero-emission vehicles and imposing a tax on pollution. 
 
 The state plans to build on that foundation and ramp up other efforts including increasing renewable electricity use, boosting energy efficiency in existing buildings and putting 1.5 million zero-emissions vehicles on the road, according to the California Air Resources Board, which is in charge of climate policy. 
 
 Supporters overcame strong opposition from oil companies and other industry interests to pass the legislation a year after business-friendly Democrats in the Assembly derailed an even more ambitious proposal to limit the use of oil in the state. 
 
 The new law puts "very severe caps on the emission of greenhouse gases in California without requiring the regulatory agencies to give any consideration" to how it will affect the economy and residents, the California Chamber of Commerce said in a statement. 
 
 Manufacturers in California already have higher energy costs compared to counterparts across the country and setting a new climate goal without providing cost-effective options "contributes to an already challenging business environment for manufacturers," Dorothy Rothrock, president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, said in a statement. 
 
 Since California became a green leader by passing the climate change law a decade ago, the state has seen a flourishing clean-energy industry, said Carlson, the UCLA law professor. 
 
 "One big accomplishment to date of California climate policy is demonstrating that we can cut greenhouse gases and still achieve impressive economic growth," she said in an email. 
 
 Brown, a Democrat who has traveled the world promoting greenhouse-gas reduction efforts, issued an executive order last year setting the new 2030 goal. On Thursday, he also signed a companion bill that provides more legislative oversight of the appointed state air resources board and gives aid to poorer areas that lawmakers say have suffered the most harm from climate change. 
 
 Despite pushing the climate goals through, the centerpiece of the state's effort to combat global warming remains in jeopardy. 
 
 The law doesn't address the cap-and-trade program, which requires companies that spew greenhouse gases to buy pollution permits that are auctioned quarterly. The funds can be spent only on programs that reduce carbon pollution. After impressive sales early on, the last two permit sales have fizzled, prompting concerns that funding won't be available to continue programs in the long run. 
 
 With the uncertainty over the cap-and-trade program, the expanded climate change law "is a point on a map, but the roadmap to that point has not been filled in yet," Dan McGraw, a Houston-based carbon analyst with the ICIS trade publication, said in an email. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Don Thompson and Juliet Williams in Sacramento contributed to this report. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Alicia Chang on Twitter: @SciWriAlicia ||||| SHARE COPY LINK Gov. Jerry Brown, signing Senate Bill 1383 on Monday Sept. 19, 2016 to reduce emissions of fluorinated gases, black carbon and methane, likened efforts to reduce climate change to the construction of Noah’s Ark. David Siders The Sacramento Bee 
 
 Gov. Jerry Brown, signing Senate Bill 1383 on Monday Sept. 19, 2016 to reduce emissions of fluorinated gases, black carbon and methane, likened efforts to reduce climate change to the construction of Noah’s Ark. David Siders The Sacramento Bee ||||| This is a set of web collections curated by Mark Graham using the Archive-IT service of the Internet Archive. They include web captures of the ISKME.org website as well as captures from sites hosted by IGC.org.These web captures are available to the general public.For more information about this collection please feel free to contact Mark via Send Mail ||||| The best climate policy – environmentally and economically – limits emissions and puts a price on them. Cap and trade is one way to do both. 
 
 It’s a system designed to reduce pollution in our atmosphere. 
 
 The cap on greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming is a firm limit on pollution. The cap gets stricter over time. 
 
 The trade part is a market for companies to buy and sell allowances that let them emit only a certain amount, as supply and demand set the price. Trading gives companies a strong incentive to save money by cutting emissions in the most cost-effective ways. 
 
 Caps limit harmful emissions 
 
 The government sets the cap across a given industry, or ideally the whole economy. It also decides the penalties for violations. 
 
 Carbon dioxide and related pollutants that drive global warming are main targets of such caps. Other pollutants that contribute to smog can also be capped. 
 
 In carbon dioxide's case, the heat-trapping greenhouse gas mixes into the upper atmosphere and has a global effect. Reducing emissions locally lowers levels around the world. 
 
 Companies are allowed to emit set amounts 
 
 The total amount of the cap is split into allowances, each permitting a company to emit one ton of emissions. (You'd have to drive 2,400 miles, roughly the distance between New York and Las Vegas, to emit that much carbon dioxide.) 
 
 The government distributes the allowances to the companies, either for free or through an auction. 
 
 The cap typically declines over time, providing a growing incentive for industry and businesses to reduce their emissions more efficiently, while keeping production costs down. 
 
 Trading can lead to cuts in pollution sooner 
 
 Companies that cut their pollution faster can sell allowances to companies that pollute more, or "bank" them for future use. 
 
 This market – the "trade" part of cap and trade – gives companies flexibility. It increases the pool of available capital to make reductions, encourages companies to cut pollution faster and rewards innovation. 
 
 Cap and trade lets the market find the cheapest way to cut emissions. Nathaniel Keohane, Vice President, Global Climate 
 
 Because there are only so many allowances available, total pollution drops as the cap falls. 
 
 As companies use established techniques to lower emissions, such as adopting energy-efficient technology, entrepreneurs see opportunity. 
 
 Ever wonder why you don't hear about acid rain anymore? Thank cap and trade, which slashed levels of sulfur dioxide to solve the problem – at a fraction of the projected cost. 
 
 Cap and trade is lowering emissions globally 
 
 A market-based approach like cap and trade allows countries to make more ambitious climate goals. 
 
 Environmental enforcement officials, trained by EDF, conduct an on-site inspection at a factory in China. 
 
 China, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, launched the initial phase of a national carbon market in 2017 with help from EDF. 
 
 The new emissions trading system is expected to be the world’s largest, dwarfing all existing programs, and is a central component of China’s strategy to tackle climate pollution. 
 
 The national program builds on pilot emissions trading systems, which have included elements of cap and trade and are already underway in seven cities and provinces in China. 
 
 They cover more than 2,600 companies in regions with a population of more than 258 million. 
 
 In the European Union's Emissions Trading System, capped emissions from stationary structures were 26 percent lower in 2016 than when the program started in 2005. 
 
 In the United States, California’s climate policies have led to a steady decline of the state's carbon dioxide pollution. The centerpiece is the cap-and-trade program, which EDF has helped design and implement. 
 
 California's emissions from sources subject to the cap declined 8.8 percent between the program’s launch in 2013 and 2016. Meanwhile, the state’s economy is thriving. 
 
 Cap and trade makes even deeper cuts possible when countries cooperate, such as the United States and Canada. California and Quebec connected their systems in 2014, building a strong market that shows great potential. 
 
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– California Gov. Jerry Brown kept up his assault on climate change Monday, pushing through a law meant to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from dairy farms and landfills. "You know, when Noah wanted to build his ark, most of the people laughed at him?" Brown said, per the Sacramento Bee, adding that that ark saved Earth's species. "We've got to build our ark, too, by stopping ... dangerous pollutants." Brown's approval of Senate Bill 1383 goes after short-lived climate pollutants, which include methane, black carbon, and HFC gases, per the AP. Although these gases don't linger in the atmosphere, they still make people sick and hasten global warming due to their heat-trapping ability, per Reuters. "We're protecting people's lungs and their health," Brown said, per Courthouse News. One of the main methane culprits: manure. Per the bill, dairy farmers have to cut methane emissions to 40% below 2013 levels by 2030. Under a cap-and-trade plan, farmers will receive aid from the $50 million or so raised via polluter fees, which they can then put toward machinery that uses methane to create energy they can in turn sell to electric companies. The state's Air Resources Board can also now regulate bovine flatulence, as long as there are practical ways to reduce the cows' belching and breaking wind. Under the bill, emissions from HFCs also must be reduced by 40% from 2013 levels by 2030, while black carbon emissions will have to get to 50% below those levels by the same year. Composting also has to go up by 50% within four years to curb methane from organic waste. The state's head of the National Federation of Independent Business rails against the "arbitrary" limits and says they're a "direct assault on California's dairy industry," per the AP.