This post was updated Nov. 4 at 12:11 a.m.

California voters will vote on a bond dedicated to fighting climate change this November.

Proposition 4 would authorize the state to fund $10 billion in bonds for “water, wildfire prevention, and protection of communities and land.” According to the California Department of General Services, a general obligation bond is a form of long-term borrowing that the state promises to pay back with interest.

Negotiating this package took about four years, said Reed Addis, an environmental consultant who helped draft Proposition 4. He added that if California does not invest in Proposition 4, the state will not have a comprehensive, long-term way to combat extreme weather.

Annie Burke, executive director of Together Bay Area – a regional coalition that advocates for climate-resilient land – said Proposition 4 is important because it addresses both water quality and extreme heat. The proposition would go toward creating healthier forests, planting street trees to mitigate extreme heat and generate cleaner air for California, she added.

“If passed, (it) will provide funding through various state agencies to on-the-ground implementation to do things like take care of forests, healthy forests, to prevent catastrophic wildfire,” Burke said. “Investing in nature-based solutions to things like sea level rise and extreme heat and a lot of other things that we really need to do.”

Andrea Mackenzie, the general manager of Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority – a public land conservation agency, said the investment would help preserve open, natural spaces for the public to enjoy.

“People need nature, and nature will only thrive if people protect, restore and invest in her,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important that we have a sizable and sustainable investment in the protection of California’s natural areas as a hedge against future climate disasters, and to make sure that we have a healthy planet.”

Mackenzie said the proposition is relevant to college students, as climate change could negatively impact so much that they take for granted.

“I’m assuming that college students like yourself like to turn on the tap and know that they have clean drinking water or clean air quality,” she said. “They like to know that when there’s a wildfire, that firefighters can get that fire under control fairly quickly, and that there are buffers around our city to contain wildfires that could be catastrophic to our urban areas, like in Los Angeles.”

However, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a California-based organization that lobbies for policies promoting taxpayers’ rights, opposes the proposition.

Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said the organization opposes the proposition because Californians already have high amounts of debt. The proposition’s bonds would be costly due to the interest that must be paid back, she added.

Shelley also said bonds approved by voters in the past have not accomplished their outlined goals, including Proposition 1, a measure to fund water storage projects from 2014, and Proposition 1A, a 2008 measure to fund a high-speed passenger train.

“We’ve seen bonds that do not accomplish what the voters were promised, the bullet train being the most spectacular, but also the water storage bond from about 10 years ago was supposed to build five reservoirs, and nothing has been built,” she said. “So just because they say it’s going to be for climate projects or it’s going to be for whatever, doesn’t mean you actually get what you’re paying for.”

However, Mackenzie and Burke both argued that the debt California will incur through the propositions is necessary for the greater good of the state.

“The cost of dealing with natural disasters when you don’t take proactive action is a lot higher than the initial investment, and we don’t have time to waste,” Mackenzie said. “Proposition 4 is a smart economic investment as well as an environmental investment.”

Burke added that this proposition is foremost an investment in the future.

“Prop. 4 really can help us invest in solutions now that prevent some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis, and what costs, say, a million dollars today is only going to cost us so much more in the future,” she said. “It’s a small down payment on the kind of investments that we need to make.”

Contributing reports from Dylan Winward, News editor.