The Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment, analyzing impacts of global warming on the northeast states, coordinated by the Union of Concerned Scientists, was released today and is available at http://www.climatechoices.org/.
“This report is a sobering assessment of the impacts we’ll see in Massachusetts as a result of global warming. It confirms that we need to take swift action to tackle global warming and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
“Governor Patrick and the legislature need to adopt a comprehensive cap on global warming pollution that will cut emissions 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. California, New Jersey and Hawaii have all adopted pollution caps with similar targets, and the entire Massachusetts Congressional delegation supports federal legislation that contains identical pollution reduction goals. We need to use all the tools in our toolbox – energy efficiency, renewable fuels, smart growth and more – to solve this problem. The best way to make sure we use those tools, and start inventing the next generation of clean energy solutions, is to put an aggressive pollution cap in place.
“The state legislature’s environment committee is currently reviewing a bill to cap global warming pollution, the Global Warming Solutions Act, Senate Bill 534, filed by Senator Marc Pacheco and supported by a number of lawmakers, that would make Massachusetts a national and international leader in tackling global warming.
“Massachusetts has taken some steps to tackle global warming, such as re-joining RGGI, the regional plan to cut power plant pollution by 10% by 2018. But emissions are still projected to rise indefinitely into the future, so we have not done nearly enough to get on track to solving the problem.”
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Environment Massachusetts is the new home of MASSPIRG’s environmental work.
