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General Motors announced it will cease its opposition to California’s tailpipe emissions reduction work, asserting it is now committed “to an all-electric, zero emission future.” For about a year and a half, General Motors led the effort to strip California of its vehicle emissions regulatory power. Three weeks after the election that took down the chief proponent of that push, President Trump, the company did an about-face.

In a Nov. 23 letter to several environmental organizations, General Motors President Mary Barra claims her company is now aligned with California’s and Biden’s “ambitious electrification goals” to reduce climate pollution.

GM specifically dropped its opposition to the lawsuit challenging Trump's withdrawal of California’s Clean Air Act Waiver authority. The waiver has allowed the state to set emission standards more stringent than federal rules. Toyota and Fiat have fought California alongside GM.

Going forward, GM wants to negotiate a “national standard and complementary policies to accelerate the electrification of the light-duty transportation sector.”

“We don’t trust GM as far as we can throw it,” replied Dan Becker, the Center for Biological Diversity director of safe climate and transportation campaign, one of the letter recipients. He rejects negotiating with GM because in 2009, it agreed along with other car manufacturers to an emissions reduction deal negotiated by the Obama Administration. It also committed in writing to the settlement but reneged shortly after Trump entered office.

Becker added that GM’s proposal is “very limited” because it’s continuing its lawsuit challenging the Obama settlement to roll back federal emissions 5% a year through 2025. In addition, GM has not made a commitment on the timing or number of EVs it plans to manufacture.

In July 2019, several car makers backed California’s voluntary car emission reductions agreement and opposed Trump’s effort to gut the state authority to set lower emissions. Ford, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen signed on to the California Air Resources Board’s plan to cut emissions by about 30% by 2026. Part of the strategy is to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles. The companies were threatened with an anti-trust investigation by the Department of Justice under Trump, but that fizzled.

According to Becker, the ARB deal is considerably weaker than Obama’s emissions reduction plan, setting annual reductions between 3-3.7% compared to a 5% yearly decline.

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The California Air Resources Board latest joint quarterly carbon auction with Quebec sold all the allowances offered, and at a higher price than the previous auction. Nearly 56.4 million allowances sold Nov. 17 for $16.93 per allowance, ARB reported Nov. 24. That compares to 52.6 million of the 59.2 million allowances offered in last August’s auction. Those sold at $16.63 per allowance.

Each allowance conveys the right to emit one metric ton of carbon dioxide.

In both the current and previous auctions, all the nearly 8.7 million advanced allowances sold—this month for $17.35, compared to $16.73 in August.

The highest price fetched this year was in February. All the current allowances went for $17.83. All 8.67 million advance auction allowances sold for $18 each.

How much California will net from this second quarterly auction is expected to be released Dec. 2. The money generated is to be spent largely on programs aimed at cutting greenhouse gases.

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President-elect Joe Biden said John Kerry, the former Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator, will be named the special presidential envoy for climate, a new cabinet position. Kerry helped negotiate the Paris climate accord, from which Trump had the U.S. recently withdraw.

He will be responsible for reviving the country’s role in reversing climate change.

Kerry “will be matched with a high-level White House climate policy coordinator and policymaking structure to be announced in December that will lead efforts here in the United States to combat the climate crisis, mobilize action to meet the existential threat that we face,” Biden said, according to MSN News . Biden added he does not “underestimate the difficulties of meeting my bold commitment to fighting climate change.”