We all want to believe we’re doing our part.

That’s especially true in California, where we’ve built an identity around sustainability and climate leadership. From Teslas to rooftop solar, we believe we’re the cleanest, greenest state in the country, and aspire to be a model for the world.

But the real math tells a different story.

California’s per capita carbon footprint is nearly 13 metric tons per year. That’s slightly below the U.S. average of 14, but nearly three times the global average of 4.7.

So where do we get the idea that we’re ahead of the pack?

Two reasons:

• We have great marketers in California, and our messaging focuses on feel-good wins, mainly around EV and solar adoption, while ignoring our real footprint.
• We export the emissions. We outsource manufacturing and cloud computing, import goods, and only count what happens inside our state lines.

Maybe we deserve a C for effort, but we’re not actually moving the needle in the way we think we are.

Let’s Break Down the Real Numbers

California officially reports about 371 megatons (Mt) of CO₂ per year.

But when you include wildfires, imported goods, digital infrastructure, and AI (most of which is powered outside California), the number climbs to 510 Mt.

By 2035, even if we assume generous savings from EVs and solar, and hold wildfires in check, we’re on track to hit 580 Mt.

That’s 12.9 tons per person today, heading toward 14.3 tons in a state of 40 million.

What’s Really Driving Our Carbon Problem?

1. The Carbon Down Payment (EVs & Solar)

Over 90% of our so-called green tech, EV batteries and solar cells, is manufactured overseas, often in fossil-fueled factories, and comes with a massive upfront carbon cost.

EV batteries are still built on 100-year-old manufacturing processes and require a three-year “carbon payback” just to break even.

Solar? It’s been monopolized by China. By repurposing older fabrication facilities and flooding the market with subsidized panels, they triggered a price war only they could win. Innovation stalled, and U.S. solar turned into a sales and integration business.

We’re scaling legacy tech using marketing hype, and not necessarily putting our best foot forward.

2. The Carbon Cloud (Digital + AI)

Our screens feel clean. But every click, stream, and prompt lives in the cloud, and the cloud runs on energy.

Digital emissions already total 18 Mt. About 80% of that compute happens outside California, even before factoring the coming carbon wave of AI.

AI workloads are doubling fast, and industry estimates project emissions could grow by 10 to 100 times over the next decade.

Used well, AI could help us reduce waste, optimize supply chains, and enable critical manufacturing back home. Used poorly, it just creates the illusion of progress while burning through the grid.

We regulate tailpipes. But we don’t even track data centers.
It’s time to separate the good from the bad and count the digital carbon.

3. The Physical Imports

Each year, we bring in an estimated 100 Mt of carbon via goods made elsewhere: electronics, clothing, and raw materials.

We benefit from the products. But we don’t count the emissions.
We’ve outsourced our factories and, with them, responsibility.

That’s not accountability. It’s carbon laundering.

4. Wildfires: The Carbon Wildcard

In a good year, wildfires are a top-five emitter in California.
In a bad year, they rival all transportation emissions.

And yet, we treat them as natural disasters even though they’re increasingly driven by human choices: aging infrastructure, reckless zoning, and unmanaged forests.

We don’t need more smoke. We need more common sense.

Honest Accounting: California 2025 vs 2035

All told, even if we assume 60 Mt in savings through EV and solar, fire emissions held at recent averages, and AI capped at the low end of current projections (around 10 times today’s levels), total carbon output is still projected to rise from 510 Mt to 580 Mt by 2035.

• Global average? 4.7 tons per person
• California today? 12.9 tons
• California projected? 14.3 tons
• Paris Climate Accord target? Just 2 tons per person

And we’re offloading a significant part of our responsibility. In 2025, 28% of our footprint comes from outside California. By 2035, it’s projected to exceed 52%. That’s not leadership. That’s avoidance.

So maybe before we critique others for ignoring the Paris accord, we take a long, hard look in the mirror.

What Should We Actually Do?

Let’s stop pretending we’re saving the planet and start solving the problems at the root.

That means a real plan: measurable, visionary, and grounded in action.

Transportation

The fastest carbon win? Reduce the number of cars on the road.

Carpool lanes should be for actual carpoolers. One car with two people cuts emissions by 50 percent, no matter the fuel type.

No carpool? Back in the regular lane.

Wildfire Management

Oh, I want to say so much about our non-performance here, but this isn’t a podcast…

In summary, we need proactive forest care, and flawless disaster response.

Let’s invest in controlled burns, forest thinning, selective logging, zoning reform, and new reservoirs.

Less smoke. More water. Fewer disasters.
And when fires do spark, let’s stop them early before they spread.

Own the Supply Chain

This might be the biggest opportunity of them all.

When we let factory jobs go overseas, we didn’t just lose manufacturing. We also lost the engineering, marketing, and support roles that made those operations successful. We also lost the local economies that grew around them.

With today’s advancements in AI, robotics, and clean power, and with reduced shipping costs, we have the ability to be competitive and rebuild right here at home. We can create jobs, regain control over how and where value is created, and manage the carbon impact under our own watchful eyes.

Build a Real Energy Mix

Solar matters. But it’s only part of the solution.

We need nuclear, geothermal, hydro, long-duration storage, and a hardened grid to hold it all together.

These aren’t overnight projects. They take time to design, build, and deploy. That means we must start now.

Count the Digital Carbon

You track MPG for your car.

Why not a carbon-per-click rating for your devices?

Click, chat, and stream with awareness.

Let’s get ahead of the coming carbon tsunami. Let’s track AI’s footprint from the beginning, and build the right kind of accountability now.

The Digital Fork in the Road: What AI Becomes Is Up to Us

AI might be the most powerful tool we’ve ever built.

But like any tool, its impact depends on what we ask of it, and who’s asking.

Right now, most of what’s being built is focused on attention and efficiency.
Faster ads. Personalized content. Digital assistants who know how to make you click, scroll, and stay just a little longer.

That’s not inherently bad, but it’s also not what this moment demands.

Because if we get this right, if we put AI to work solving the problems that matter, we could unlock breakthroughs in energy use, transportation, logistics, waste reduction, and urban design. We could reduce emissions by helping humans do what we’ve always struggled with: seeing the whole system and making better choices.

If we get it wrong?

We’ll spend billions training models to entertain us, sell us things, and simulate intelligence, all while burning more energy than entire countries.

AI can go left or right. It can optimize the status quo or help us build a new path.

That choice? It’s still ours.

Let’s Start Now with a Clear Target: Carbon 8

Do you want to start doing something about this today? Let’s start here.

Look at your impact in each category and commit to a clear, doable goal: 8 tons per person per year.

It won’t solve everything. But it’s a powerful start and gives us a baseline for meaningful accountability.

Here’s what it looks like in practice:

• Transportation (↓ 38%) — Carpool, work remote, or electrify wisely
• Power/Heat (↓ 32%) — Use less, shift timing, choose clean
• Imports (↓ 40%) — Buy better, buy local, repair more
• Wildfires (↓ 56%) — Support smart forest management
• Digital (↓ 22%) — Stream less, prompt less, demand transparency. Power AI with purpose

What Are We Really Leaving Behind?

This is not about being perfect. It’s about being honest and committed to something better.

The next generation won’t care how green California looked on paper. They’ll care whether it works, is livable, and feels fair.

We have the tools. Let’s use them to fix what we’ve failed to address.

Let’s stop measuring success in headlines and hashtags, and start measuring it in carbon removed, energy delivered, and lives improved.

We can’t outsource this one. We have to own it.

Think bigger. Act smarter. Shape a future worth passing on.

Carbon 8. Let’s make it right. Let’s live light.

Missed Part One? Read it here.

If I’ve learned anything from leading and advising tech businesses, it’s this: we can fix just about anything when we decide it’s worth fixing.

Technology has changed the game, transformed how we work and live, and opened doors we couldn’t have imagined a generation ago.

But when it comes to climate, we’re still not applying that same clarity. We’re optimizing for headlines instead of outcomes.

We’ve never had more data or better tools to make sense of it. And yet more and more we are chasing soundbites, media cycles, and superficial wins. There’s no room left for real thinking.

Life Used to Be More Straightforward

You could count on a real debate about the federal budget. News reports separated facts from opinion. There was a kind of unwritten playbook:
go to school, get a job, build a career, create wealth, raise a family.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was grounded.

Now that playbook feels shredded. And the pace of change has gone from fast to disorienting.

“Things have never moved so fast, and they’ll never move this slow again.”

That used to apply to technology. Now it applies to everything: how we solve problems, how we talk to each other, and how we measure progress.

I have three boys and a grandson. Like any good handoff, I want to leave them with more than a mess and a pep talk.

My wife, who watches political coverage like it’s a sport, has been encouraging me to say something about these real-world issues for years — to provide a path through the noise.

So, let’s start here, with one of the most hyped areas in public discourse: the climate conversation.

This article is the first in a two-part series that goes under the hood with a business lens. It’s not comprehensive like a doctoral thesis, but it’s the kind of deep dive I’d expect before placing a big bet.

The Real Carbon Cost of California’s EV Push

Everyone loves a clean headline: Electric Vehicles (EV) are up, internal combustion engine (ICE) cars are down, and California is saving the planet one rebate at a time.

The growth charts look great. Emissions from gas-powered cars are shrinking. EVs are on the rise. But as with most stories that sound too good, the real details live under the glossy finish.

Let’s start at the top

Carbon 101: Why It Matters

Carbon dioxide (CO2) isn’t inherently bad. It’s a natural part of the Earth’s atmosphere. Under normal conditions, solar radiation warms the planet, and excess heat escapes into space. But too much CO₂ traps that heat like an invisible blanket.

Since the industrial revolution, we’ve been pumping CO₂ into the air at an accelerating rate.

Most of it comes from burning fossil fuels for electricity, transportation, and manufacturing.

That buildup has raised global temperatures by over 1°C in the last hundred years and, according to many researchers, has contributed to more frequent droughts, rising seas, and extreme weather events.

If we pass the 1.5°C to 2°C threshold, most scientists agree the effects will accelerate.

Earth’s baseline surface temperature is around 14.8°C (58°F). A few degrees may not sound like much, but keep in mind, the last ice age happened when the planet was just 5°C (9°F) cooler.

We don’t need to stop progress. But we do need to manage what we burn, build smarter systems, and treat carbon like financial debt. It looks manageable, until it compounds.

The Narrative vs. the Math

Let’s look at the three popular energy narratives, and what’s actually happening under the hood.

1. EV Adoption is up 1,000%.

This is one of Gavin Newsom’s favorite stats. And technically, it’s true.

Between 2013 and 2023 California went from 175,000 EVs to around 1.75 million on the road.

But California has nearly 30 million registered vehicles. Even with 3 million EVs on the road in 2025, the net savings is only about 4 million metric tons (Mt) of CO₂ annually, which is less than 1% of the state’s total emissions. So yes, it’s a growth story. But don’t confuse that with impact.

2. Biofuels quietly did more

While EVs get all the hype, California’s heavy-duty trucks started shifting to renewable diesel and biodiesel after 2015.

That fuel switch didn’t need influencers or rebates — it just worked. And it cut emissions by 17 to 20 Mt per year. That’s ten times the impact of all EVs in California over the past decade.

Why? Because it addressed the problem at the root. We have tens of millions of vehicles on the road, and the fastest way to make a dent in emissions is to tackle what powers them.

It wasn’t a consumer choice. It was a systems-level shift.

And it worked.

3. That 30% drop in emissions? That was COVID.

California officials love to point to the 2020–2022 emissions dip as proof that climate policies are working.

But what actually happened?

People stayed home. Planes were grounded. Cities went quiet. The world stopped.

That drop wasn’t the result of state policy. It was the result of a global emergency.

And now that we’re “back to normal,” emissions are climbing again. In many cases, they’re even higher than before.

Missing the Forest for the Trees

Ask the average person what California is doing to fight climate change, and the top answers are almost always EVs and solar energy.

And yes, those technologies help.

But even with meaningful adoption, we’re missing the forest for the trees.

Let’s go under the hood

Per Tesla’s own sustainability report, it takes nearly three years of driving an EV to offset the additional emissions from battery production compared to a traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.

Why the carbon debt up front? Battery production is dirty.

EV batteries take about 20 metric tons (t) of CO₂ to manufacture, roughly double that of an ICE vehicle. Tesla claims that with an annual savings of 3.5 tons of CO₂ compared to ICE, the breakeven point arrives after three years. Over a 17-year lifespan, they estimate a total reduction of 51 tons.

But a couple of things stand out:

1. Tesla models carbon savings over 17 years, but the average vehicle lifespan in California is closer to 12 years. While EVs may last longer due to fewer moving parts, the real limitation isn’t the car — it’s the battery. Most EV batteries are warrantied for 8 to 10 years and often begin degrading well before year 17. Many will need replacement by year 10, especially as new battery technologies emerge.
2. If you replace the battery, that original 10-ton deficit resets. From a climate perspective, you’re starting over.

Here’s the kicker: Lease an EV for three years, and your climate benefit? Zero. You’re giving the car back just as it hits breakeven.

California’s EV Gains: Real, But Limited

The carbon math matters. And right now, it’s not being applied with full honesty.

Here’s the Full Picture

Once you include manufacturing and charging emissions, here’s how internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles compare to EVs.

In 2025, assuming California hits 3 million EVs on the road, we’ll reduce emissions by about 4 Mt, a modest gain mainly due to the penalty of battery production. By 2035, that number could grow to 45 Mt if we assume over 50% EV adoption and meaningful improvements in battery production.

Beyond the Battery: What We’re Not Counting

· Tire wear: EVs are heavier than ICE vehicles, and their tires wear out 30% to 40% faster. That means more landfill waste, and more microplastics in the environment.

· Traffic inefficiencies: When EV drivers use the carpool lane solo, it reduces the incentive for actual carpooling. That means more cars on the road overall, leading to slower traffic and higher fuel consumption from the ICE vehicles stuck behind them.

· Grid pressure: Every new EV puts more stress on a power system that’s already stretched thin. Summer blackouts, AI servers, and now millions of EVs charging overnight. We’re solving one problem while quietly feeding another.

The Subsidy Nobody Questions

We’re also pouring $7,500 per vehicle into government incentives — before breakeven, before savings, and with no guarantee the car or battery will reach its full lifecycle.

That’s $7 billion a year.

You know what else you can build with that? Two decent-sized reservoirs. Maybe three.

So… Are EVs Bad?

No. They’re a step in the right direction, and they’ll help in the long run. They’re not perfect, and pretending they are does more harm than good.

The carbon tradeoffs, battery lifespan, grid strain, and public subsidies all deserve a more honest accounting. The bigger issue? We’re scaling outdated battery tech because the subsidies are there and the story sells, even though the environmental math doesn’t. In any other business, you wouldn’t scale a product with this much environmental baggage just because the story sells. But that’s exactly what we’re doing with EVs.

Like any serious investment, EVs need to be evaluated based on their full lifecycle return, not just how good they look in a press release.

If adoption continues as projected and we advance battery production technology, EVs could help California save 45Mt of CO₂ annually by 2035. That’s about 7.5% of the state’s total footprint and effectively offsets half of the overall growth we’re expecting over the same period.

That’s progress. Just not the game-changer it’s made out to be. And while we fine-tune our tailpipes, there’s a wildfire-sized hole in our strategy.

We’re Missing the Forest for the Fires

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: wildfires.

On average, wildfires in California release 63Mt of CO₂ each year. That’s more than ten times the combined savings from EVs over the past five years.

In a bad year like 2020, that number spiked to 127 Mt. A single fire season wiped out years of clean energy progress.

EVs matter. But wildfires matter more. And they are literally out of control.

And just when we think we’re making a dent… the real surge is still ahead.

We talk a lot about what we drive, but almost nothing about what we stream, scroll, upload, or ask ChatGPT.

Even if EVs worked exactly as promised, California’s overall carbon footprint would still be rising. Digital consumption — AI, cloud, streaming, social — is projected to generate 188 Mt of emissions annually by 2035, nearly four times what we expect EVs to save by then.

That doesn’t include the carbon cost of building clean tech. Most of our batteries, solar panels, and devices are made in other countries, often using coal-powered electricity.

We’re saving Planet California. But we’re killing planet Earth.

We’ve looked at a meaningful slice of the picture to highlight just how much misinformation is out there. The deeper truth is harder to see, and even harder to measure.

In the next piece, we’ll zoom out and take a more holistic, systems-level view, including the emissions we export, the digital habits we rarely count, and the trade-offs we tend to ignore.

Not as a policy exercise but as a business case, with real goals, clear math, and full accountability.

As if it were our own business and we were paying for it.

Oh wait. We already are.