California regulators are making strides in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by being the first state to require low-carbon fuels.

The new measures could serve as a template for future national policy.

The California Air Resources Board announced today that they will institute a proposal that calls for reducing the carbon content of fuels sold in California by 10 percent by 2020. They plan to do this by counting the emissions required to deliver gasoline and diesel to California consumers, as transportation accounts for almost 40 percent of greenhouse gasses in California.

“The emissions from this sector have traditionally grown in California at a rate that exceeds even our growth in population,” board chairwoman Mary Nichols said at the hearing. “It has led to a host of environmental problems.”

Bill Clinton and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg are joining forces to cut energy use at the Empire State Building by 38 percent, saving $4.4 million a year in energy costs.

The $20 million makeover will include replacing 6,500 windows, reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 105,000 metric tons during the next 15 years, and give tenants web-based systems for managing their energy usage. Former President Clinton and Mayor Bloomberg both attended the announcement on the Empire State Building’s 80th floor on Monday. The hope is that this renovation will set the bar for other older buildings and landmarks. Experts say retrofitting old buildings to be more environmentally friendly is an important step in reducing greenhouse gases.

“This New York icon is sending really a strong signal to the rest of the world that going green, even in the current economic crisis, is an economic and environmental imperative,” Clinton said.

To better calculate the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere NASA is launching a new satellite tomorrow. The precise measurements of the Orbital Carbon Observatory will help scientists better understand the natural processes as well as the human impact of carbon dioxide levels. This should provide more reliable predictions of how green house gases are distributed through the atmosphere as well as their effect on global warming

Current data on carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere has become much easier for anyone to check now since last week Purdue University released a carbon dioxide map for Google Earth. It reveals pollution from factories, highways, buildings, etc. for the U.S. by state, county or population.

This is all part of Purdue’s Project Vulcan which is intending to expand the details of the map and expanding it to Canada and Mexico.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during a meeting in Jakarta. With Indonesia and the U.S. being the world’s second and third largest greenhouse gas emitters, members of Greenpeace rallied outside the presidential palace during the meeting to bring attention to reducing emissions.

“We call on the US leadership to handle the issue of climate change seriously and we ask developed countries like the US to provide funds to countries like Indonesia to save their forests and support their efforts to reduce emissions,” Greenpeace forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said.

For Indonesia, forest-clearing is the main cause of emissions and Clinton told Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda that she “applauded” Indonesian efforts to “integrate deforestation into the broader climate negotiations.”

However, Greenpeace maintains that the United States needs to have stratedgies in place that would offer countries financial incentives to stop deforestation and offer environmentally friendly development alternatives.