> US government does not even believe that any such thing is happening and has relaxed EPA regulations on polluters and such, so is CA restricting sale of fossil fuel vehicles going to matter in the long run?
Operative word being 'the long run'. The current US government may be replaced within the next few months with one that might be expected to take a more normal view on the problem, so what it's doing now is arguably fairly irrelevant, when you're talking about 2035.
Many European countries have recently made similar moves, with the EU as a whole and China making noises about something similar (though probably on a longer timescale; 2040 or later). So this isn't just a weird California thing.
Operative word being 'the long run'. The current US government may be replaced within the next few months with one that might be expected to take a more normal view on the problem, so what it's doing now is arguably fairly irrelevant, when you're talking about 2035.
Many European countries have recently made similar moves, with the EU as a whole and China making noises about something similar (though probably on a longer timescale; 2040 or later). So this isn't just a weird California thing.