Climate action
Toolbox
Published: October 31, 2007
The governor's commission on climate change produced its long-awaited report last week, outlining an ambitious course of action on energy and economic issues.
Gov. James Douglas established the commission two years ago with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 and 50 percent below by 2028. Since then Douglas has become embroiled in a variety of climate-related political controversies that, one hopes, the work of the commission will help resolve in a positive way.
Ernest Pomerleau, a pillar of the Burlington area business community, was chairman of the commission, and so the commission's report cannot be dismissed as the work of wild-eyed environmentalists. The climate issue is grounded in the facts of the economy, local and global.
One of the principal conclusions of the commission's report is that to address the climate issue in a meaningful way it must be attacked on all fronts. The report discusses a variety of ways to cut down on fossil fuel consumption and otherwise reduce the state's carbon footprint. And it says the state must do all of them.
One of the significant recommendations of the report is to reduce the consumption of heating fuels in homes and businesses the way that the state has used Efficiency Vermont to reduce the consumption of electricity.
Douglas vetoed a bill earlier this year that would have established just such a program because of differences about the program's funding. But then he sought to implement by administrative action some of the energy-saving goals that would have been addressed by an expanded version of Efficiency Vermont, which suggest he understands there is a need to act.
His own commission has underscored that reality. It will put new impetus behind efforts in the Legislature to craft an all-fuels energy conservation program that will not run afoul of the governor's objections. And it will put new pressure on Douglas to join in the effort to take aggressive action on energy conservation.
Douglas sought to define the agenda of the coming year by conducting a listening tour during which he heard the concerns of Vermonters. The conclusions he drew from his tour were disturbing.
He said he did not hear a great clamor from Vermonters about climate change. He said Vermonters were more concerned about their taxes.
Vermonters are concerned about both. The clamor about climate is out there, and if Douglas hasn't heard it, it is because he hasn't been listening, or he has been listening selectively. Now his own commission has joined the clamor.
The clamor has arisen because of the mounting evidence that climate change is upon us. We have become familiar with the effects of climate change: the shrinking ice caps, the receding glaciers, the imperiled species, the droughts and storms. But now these effects are themselves becoming causes for accelerating change.
Recent reports say that carbon emissions are growing faster even than the worst-case scenarios previously predicted. One report showed that the oceans are no longer absorbing carbon dioxide as they used to, which could speed global warming beyond even the most dire warnings.
The governor's commission has pointed the way, and if Douglas is listening, he will embrace its findings as his own.
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