Obama appoints Brown, Garcetti to climate-change task force

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Gov. Jerry Brown are among the state and local leaders named to a national task force that will recommend steps the federal government can take to help communities cope with climate change.

President Obama established the task force last week when he signed an executive order directing federal agencies to prepare for climate change.

Under the order, federal agencies are to:

--Encourage investments that will make cities and towns more resilient to the effects of climate change, including sea-level rise and extreme weather events.

--Take climate change into consideration in managing natural resources. That could mean, for example, protecting the carbon sequestration capacity of forests and promoting natural storm barriers such as sand dunes and wetlands.

--Adapt federal facilities and operations to the risks of climate change.

The task force was established in the same week that Brown signed an agreement with Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia to jointly combat climate change.

The nonbinding blueprint calls for the four governments to align their policies on matters such as carbon-pollution pricing, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and electric vehicles.