The state and local governments’ responsibility for the failures that led to the cataclysmic Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025 will eventually be determined. But even at this juncture, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his legislative majority cannot escape their responsibility for their budget priorities that have funded a misguided effort to slow climate change, rather than mitigate its consequences, like the increasing risk of wildfires in the state.
In September 2021, a group of experts led by former California Gov. Jerry Brown, issued the so-called Venado Declaration. It proposed that the state spend $5 billion annually to address the danger of wildfires, including through proactive fuels reduction, home hardening and wildfire protection planning.
This call for action made sense since eight of California’s largest wildfires had erupted during the four years before the Declaration’s issuance. But Newsom and his legislative allies have ignored this wise counsel in favor of virtue-signaling in favor of zero-emission vehicles.
Specifically, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, California budgeted only $2.623 billion over the last four fiscal budgets through the 2024-2025 budget for wildfire and forest resilience, while allocating $9.164 billion for zero-emission vehicles over the same period. In short, almost 3.5 times more revenue has been allocated to support zero-emission vehicles than for safeguarding lives and property from wildfires. Moreover, the state expects to add only an additional $900 million for wildfire resilience in forthcoming annual state budgets through 2028-2029.
As a result of this misallocation, eight of the most destructive wildfires in California occurred from August 2020 through January 2025 after Newsom took office in 2019. This includes the recent Palisades and Eaton fires in the Los Angeles area, making 2025 the “second most destructive fire year in California history.”
California’s expenditure of funds to encourage zero-emission vehicles at the expense of more funding for wildfire resilience is folly for the following reasons:
First, the greenhouse gases emitted from California’s wildfires have exceeded California’s reduction in greenhouse gases. The 2020 wildfires alone spewed twice the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that California had achieved over 18 years, according to a UCLA-University of Chicago study. On top of that, the state’s 2018 wildfires generated more than nine times the emissions that California had reduced in 2017, according to a study by Beacon Economics.
Second, these wildfires threaten lives and homes, increase homeowners’ insurance premiums, destroy forests which play a role as a “sink” to sequester carbon emissions from the atmosphere, and dangerously emit the small particulates (known as PM 2.5) which can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause lung cancer, heart and asthma attacks, respiratory problems and pre-term births. California’s Legislative Analyst has warned that “wildfires account[ed] for up to 25% of small particulate matter air pollution in the U.S. in recent years.”
Third, it is not even clear whether California’s climate change policies could have any positive effect on mitigating the risk of climate change. In 2023, China emitted 31.4% of fossil carbon dioxide emissions compared to 13% by the United States. The Council on Foreign Relations reports “in 2020, China built over three times more new coal-power capacity than the rest of the world combined.” Under these circumstances, reliance on zero-emission vehicles in California to affect climate change is more faith than fact.
Fourth, Newsom’s decision to prioritize zero-emission vehicles over resources for wildfire safety contributes to California’s high electricity rates, which are nearly double the rest of the nation for homes serviced by the state’s three major investor-owned utilities—PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. The Legislative Analyst has explained that key factors likely driving these higher rates are “wildfire-related costs, [greenhouse gas] reduction programs and policies.” Since 2019, the average bills for these three utilities increased by 7% to 13% as a result of wildfires. And for what benefit?
Finally, climate change is not some unique event in human history. There was an unusually warm period during Roman times. Between 950 and 1250, the climate in the Northern Hemisphere again warmed, enhancing agricultural production. But temperatures subsequently dropped significantly around 1300, known as the Little Ice Age, resulting in famine.
What is instead unique today are politicians placing undue resources into a questionable effort to stop climate change, rather than using them to manage its consequences. Even the ancient world knew better, as reflected in the Bible’s lesson extolling Joseph’s advice to Pharaoh to store food during “seven plenteous years” in order to feed the people during “seven years of famine”—an early example of addressing the consequences of climate change.
Unfortunately, it is easier for politicians to virtue signal than to engage in the hard work of identifying fire hazard areas, thinning overgrown forests, and clearing brush, particularly in the wildland-urban interface—the area where human development meets undeveloped wildland and in which some of the most destructive wildfires in California have originated, including the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires.
Unfortunately, as long as voters reward virtue signaling, rather than effective wildfire prevention policies, the state will continue to go up in flames.
Daniel M. Kolkey, an attorney and former California appellate judge, served as counsel to California Gov. Pete Wilson and serves on the board of Pacific Research Institute.