SOUTH KINGSTOWN — While the federal government has failed to embrace a national program to address climate change, the State of California has launched a broad campaign under a state agency with a $750-million budget and 1,200 engineers and scientists.

Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, described her state’s efforts on Wednesday as part of the University of Rhode Island’s Fall 2008 Honors Colloquium on global environmental change.

Warned by local scientists who saw the state’s water resources dwindling, its sea level rising and its wildfires worsening, Nichols said Californians responded by endorsing legislation requiring emission reductions from cars and trucks, providing the foundation for a cap-and-trade program for industry and reducing greenhouse gas emissions statewide to 1990 levels by 2020 — a 30 percent reduction.

Instead of helping, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency denied the state a waiver that would allow it to reduce vehicle emissions. That is why the state is suing the EPA, Nichols said. Rhode Island is one of 16 states that have joined that suit.

“We expect with the new administration [of Barack Obama], we will get our waiver,” Nichols said.

She said Californians realize their climate change plan can serve as the model for the country, and for other countries, so the state is trying to develop a program that will go beyond one environmental department and be implemented by all state agencies. “It’s so massive, we have to work with everyone,” Nichols said. She said the state needs tens of thousands of workers trained for green industries. It also needs to curb sprawl, improve mass transit, reduce energy use and generate alternative sources of energy.

She said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has provided dynamic and effective leadership in California, and the same thing could happen at the federal level.

“We’ll be doing this for the next 50 to 80 years, so short-term fixes won’t work,” she said.

People will find that energy will cost more per unit, but they will spend less overall because they are using less, she said.

“If we can’t do this for love of planet, or to help island nations that may go under water, we can do it for the love of money,” Nichols said. “Developing a new, clean-energy economy is something we should be doing and can do, to create a sustainable economy for the future.”

Next week, Nichols said, Schwarzenegger is hosting a summit that will be attended by governors and heads of state to share energy stories. She said California wants to show it has the entrepreneurs and investors and inventors who can lead the world in developing new technologies to reduce energy use.

“We know we can get Detroit to build more efficient cars,” Nichols said. “We know we can find alternative energy resources. And we’re looking forward to more national dialogue at the federal level on this in the next few months than we have had in past years.”

A student said she studied in California and found it to be a place that endorses a culture of “having things.” Couldn’t Americans help the environment by buying less? she asked.

Nichols said politicians don’t like doing that. But maybe the current recession will provide a lesson.

Asked about a stimulus package for the auto industry, Nichols said, “They have cried wolf before, and every time they have been revived, they go about doing things that make no sense in the long term.” She said they should be helped, but only with strings attached to decrease energy use.

She was also asked about the chances of the country turning things around in 10 years.

“I think the situation is dire,” Nichols said. “It will require cooperation unlike any we have had before.”

But, she said, nations will be negotiating a new climate change treaty in Denmark next year and this time she thinks there is a good chance they will support one that “puts us on the right path.”

The United States never supported the last treaty, the Kyoto Protocol.

At 7:30 p.m. next Tuesday night in Edwards Auditorium at URI’s Kingston campus, Jeremy Jackson, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, will give a talk on “Human Effects on the Ocean and its Ecosystem.”

plord@projo.com