These policies are living documents—starting points for ongoing improvement and community collaboration. We welcome your feedback as we shape them together.

We envision a California that leads the way in sustainability and climate innovation. We believe these efforts should be human-focused, citizen-led, and science-backed, not controlled by special interests. We see a California that places transformative community protection and adaptation above profit and holds corporations accountable for actions that damage our precious resources.

The Problem:

(Jump to solutions)

We all bear responsibility for the protection of our communities. Climate change is real, and Californians suffer its consequences every day. While we all bear the responsibility for our communities and share the consequences of climate change, corporations have a profuse share of the blame, while consumers and residents bear the majority of the cost. Big polluters must pay for their role in climate change — literally — with superfund laws, and corporations (like utility companies) must be held accountable for their role in climate disasters. We need to adapt to the changing landscape of our longer fire season, which will take collective action. This includes creating better fire mitigation strategies in our communities, more agile responses, using scientific data to understand risk reduction, and updated regulations around land use and defensible space. Additionally, special interests currently have undue control within California to lobby against climate change legislation and make it harder for meaningful, citizen-led reform to pass. Campaign finance reform is key to leveling the playing field of special interests in our state and making reform citizen-led.


Paths Forward:

These policy recommendations are not all-inclusive.


We support the use of reliable scientific data — such as that from NASA and the United Nations Framework on Climate Change — to guide responsible mitigation and adaptation strategies that preserve and protect our communities. Adaptation efforts should be tailored to the specific needs of each city and neighborhood, particularly in protecting residents from climate disasters like wildfires and mudslides.

One critical adaptation strategy involves limiting expansion into the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) — a 7-million-acre zone where nearly 14 million Californians live and which is especially prone to wildfires. The most destructive fires in California history have occurred in the WUI, including the Palisades and Eaton fires — the two largest in Los Angeles County in 2025 — which destroyed entire neighborhoods and killed 28 people as of January 24, according to CalMatters. Zoning restrictions in these areas can help reduce future risk.

Alongside these land-use measures, mitigation strategies can focus on strengthening community preparedness and defensible space policies by offering incentives — such as insurance credits — to encourage homeowners and landowners to meet updated fire safety standards, instead of relying on punitive fines.

Finally, as climate change reshapes California’s geography, state investment in highways, beaches, and other tourist infrastructure must reflect this new reality. Repair and development decisions should be based on sound research, with transparent alternatives presented to the public—prioritizing the preservation of life, livelihoods, and public funds.

Examples:

  • ✅ A study commissioned by the Bay Area Council and conducted by Milliman and CoreLogic analyzed the impact of various mitigation strategies in Paradise, California. The findings indicated that:
    • Implementing mitigation measures, including zoning reforms, home hardening, and creating external buffers, could reduce wildfire losses by up to 75% per structure.
    • These measures were projected to lower insurance premiums by approximately 55% on average.
    • Specific actions such as maintaining defensible space and adopting fire-resistant building codes were identified as critical components in enhancing community resilience.
  • ✅ The California Insurance Department’s push for catastrophe modeling in the State aims to increase coverage and provide more long-term stability. The incorporation of scientific data to better understand risk reduction will likely bring more competition and options into the market, helping communities receive insurance that meets their needs. Hand-in-hand with updated legislation and regulations around land use, defensible space, and less encroachment into the WUI, California will be much better prepared for climate disasters. Source: California’s Sustainable Insurance Strategy.
  • ✅ This fire-resistant neighborhood is the first of its kind in North County San Diego, and could provide insight into how to employ neighborhood hardening measures, including how to finance these measures. While state and local grants could prove useful for underserved communities, the insurance industry in California should consider providing more tangible discounts and incentives for homeowners to employ these hardening measures as a necessity.

Additional Sources:

Californians across the State continuously show that protection of precious California natural resources is a priority. Environmentalism should be citizen-led, with opportunities expanded for meaningful change through reducing special interest power within our legislative process, and supporting local decision-making in climate change. Citizens should lead the way to ensure action is taken to preserve these resources, and policies benefit both our environment and our communities.

Examples:

  • ✅ Multiple UK-based studies on citizen-led policymaking show positive results for emission reductions when citizens are actively engaged in these efforts from the ground up. One study followed climate change citizen juries across different cities, finding that citizens were able to tackle even the most complex problems when given the opportunity and access to do so (Shared Future).
  • ✅ California Native Plant Society (CNPS), an organization focused on advocacy and education on California Native Plants, supports their organization through local chapters. Local chapters elect delegates, who then write policy pertaining to Native Plants and environmentalism. This citizen-led effort combines “science, education, conservation, and gardening” to power their movement from the ground up.

Sources:

In order to finance the future of our State, protect natural resources, and prevent more unnecessary climate disasters, SuperFund laws that demand financial retribution from big polluters should be at the forefront of environmental legislation. Additionally, California utility companies must be held accountable for their lack of infrastructure modernization, which is often at fault for devastating disasters, without passing the bill onto consumers. While undergrounding power lines in fire-prone areas is an effective tool, there are more cost-effective updates (like insulating conductors and installing fire-resistant metal poles) that can be made immediately and without high costs.

Still, without campaign finance reform, and changes to the ways special interests are authorized to lobby the state, very little meaningful reform will be passed into law. In 2024, not only did Big Oil and public utility companies outspend environmental policy lobbyists roughly 6 to 1 (the biggest pro-oil spender spent ~$17.5 million, the biggest environmental lobbyist spent ~$2.9), but the biggest spenders got their way legislatively at least ⅔ of the time. Reform begins with requiring disclosure of connections between lobbyists and specific bills, regulating independent expenditures, and even lobbying caps.

Examples:

  • ✅ Dozens of lawsuits against big oil have already cropped up across the Nation, pushing for “polluters pay”, or superfund laws. These lawsuits allege that oil companies misled the public about the dangers of their products and knew fossil fuels were driving climate change – lied about it.
  • ✅ California Edson Utility Company is facing harsh scrutiny over their equipment, which will likely be deemed responsible for the Eaton Fires in early 2025. Without strict requirements for equipment updates, this will likely happen again.

Additional Sources: