Record Plunge in California’s Climate Emissions Seen as Outlier

California’s greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rebound after falling by a record amount in 2020 during the pandemic, the chief of the state’s air regulator said ahead of a report released Wednesday.

Carbon dioxide emissions fell to 369.2 million metric tons from 404.5 million, or about 9%, in what the California Air Resources Board’s chief executive, Steven Cliff, called the “steepest recorded drop in greenhouse gas for the state.”

“This year will be looked at as an outlier and cannot be used as a reliable data point to predict trends for the years to come,” he said during a ...