Climate Change Roadmap for Pennsylvania

Trees absorb carbon from the atmoshere.
Stakeholder-driven process produces 38 recommendations for Pennsylvania action -- we're a big part of the problem, we should be a big part of the solution!
Background: 

Pennsylvania is responsible for one percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions - more than all but 22 nations and more than 101 developing nations combined.  To do our part, PEC developed the Climate Change Roadmap for Pennsylvania with 38 recommendations for reducing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions.  The Roadmap was developed with the help of business, farm, energy generation, environmental and other stakeholders.

Project Goals: 

The Roadmap:

  • Sets a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2025, from 2000 levels;
  • Recommends capping greenhouse gas emissions and joining a nationwide system that allows the trading of credits to promote least-cost solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
  • Updates the state's 2003 inventory of greenhouse gas emissions so we have a good foundation to work from;
  • Establishes a model, based on the inventory, that will help us look at the impact of alternatives for reducing greenhouse gases and their impact on achieving our goal; and
  • Makes 38 specific recommendations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in several sectors: energy supply, transportation, residential, commercial and industrial buildings, agriculture, forestry, land use, on carbon sequestration and more.
Major milestones/successes to date: 

Senator Ted Erickson and Representative Greg Vitali have introduced bipartisan legislation (Senate Bill 266 and House Bill 110) to require the state to inventory and develop a broad plan to reduce Pennsylvania’s greenhouse gas emissions -- an plan that could be very similar to PEC's Climate Change Roadmap for Pennsylvania.

PEC's Pennsylvania effort has been expanded to developing similar plans in about 20 other states through PEC's subsidiary, Enterprising Environmental Solutions, Inc.

Current/upcoming plans: 
PEC plans to continue its efforts to educate state and local leaders, as well as communities about the potential impacts and solutions to global warming, promoting the Roadmap as the plan that the state should adopt.

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