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A new governor would be unlikely to dismantle any major climate legislation in California, especially given the Democratic state legislature and the gubernatorial re-election in 2022. Still, a great deal of California’s climate policy is achieved through executive order and administrative action, both of which a new governor could change or reverse.

“While a new governor would not be able to mount a legislative attack on California climate policy, they would be able to slow down, redirect and even reverse the implementation of California climate policy,” said William Boyd, a professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

“At a minimum, we would be looking at a year of potentially dramatic changes in the scale and pace of implementation, which would likely lead to litigation and gridlock until the next election,” Boyd said. “Losing a year or more is not something we can afford given the accelerating climate crisis.”

California, the fifth-largest economy in the world, has implemented some of the most aggressive plans to transition away from fossil fuel production to cleaner energy. Much of the necessary legislation has been in place for years.

The plans include an order for the state’s air resources board to cut emissions by 40% by the end of the decade, a requirement for utilities to get all their energy from clean sources by 2045 and a requirement that all trucks sold in the state must be zero-emissions by 2045.

As California grapples with worsening wildfires, water shortages and a historic drought, Newsom has faced mounting pressure to act more aggressively on climate change.

The governor has signed executive orders to require all new cars to be electric by 2035 and to ban new fracking permits by 2024. The Newsom administration also recently adopted a building code to transition new buildings off fossil fuels to clean energy sources. Additionally, California last year became the first state to commit to protect 30% of land and coastal waters by 2030.

Steve Weissman, the director of the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at UC Berkeley, said that while Newsom has been a “stay-the-course” governor with respect to climate change, having an “Elder-style Republican” in office could lead to an increase in the number of conservative judges who may oppose key climate policy.

“If it led to a potential re-election, the impact on California climate and environmental policy would be devastating and potentially irreversible,” Weissman said.

“This could slow climate policy nationwide and around the world,” he continued. “It is hard to overstate the damage this could do.”