Wednesday, December 23, 2020
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is poised to outline its planned steps to achieve the goals of its climate change-focused policies. On December 7, 2020, the Massachusetts Executive Office for Energy and Environmental Affairs (“EOEEA”) hosted a webinar to discuss the development and pending release of the Massachusetts
Decarbonization Roadmap to 2050 (the “Roadmap”), which EOEEA indicates it will publish this month. The Roadmap constitutes the plan of the Commonwealth to identify cost-effective and equitable pathways and strategies for Massachusetts to reach Net Zero emissions by 2050, and the priorities to achieve an on-pace interim goal by 2030. In addition to the development of the Roadmap, the Commonwealth is in the process of preparing the 2020 update to the Clean Energy and Climate Plan (“CECP”), which is mandated to receive updates every five years under the Global Warming Solutions Act (“GWSA”).
willem post says:
Environmental sciences professor, Jacobsen, at Stamford University, claimed in 2015, almost all US energy, FOR ALL USES, could be supplied by wind and solar.
The below calculation shows the cost of the battery systems, if the US would have a major wind/solar lull covering 25% of land area.
BTW, California had a major, widespread, HEAT WAVE and the result was multiple days with rolling BLACK-OUTS, i.e., NO AC.
Reality Check Regarding Utility-Scale Battery Systems.
According to weather data, the US has multi-day, wind/solar lulls covering at least 25% of the land area, which occur at random times throughout the year.
Massachusetts is a leader in this country and in the world in climate change resilience (coping with the impact of) and mitigation (doing all we can to stop climate change through stopping greenhouse gas emissions).
Resilience was addressed by 80 percent of Massachusetts towns through a planning process called the Municipal Vulnerable Planning process. Many towns on the Cape participated in this.
Working toward mitigation, in 2008, the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) was passed in Massachusetts. It sets state-level goals for each decade to achieve net zero energy statewide until 2050.
Letâs explore the meaning of net zero. Global warming results from burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas and propane, and their gases are emitted into the atmosphere. An excess of these has formed a layer around the Earth and that causes warming. That is why these are gases called greenhouse gases (GHGs). Science has tracked the increase of these gases back to the industrial growth period i
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The attorney general of Vermont said Thursday that he would defend a landmark state law that mandates the state to abide by strict carbon emission-reductions targets, responding to suggestions by the governor and his office of a possible constitutional challenge to invalidate it.
Vermont’s Attorney General Thomas Donovan, a Democrat, said in a statement that he would fight a possible lawsuit by Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, after he and his administration suggested that the recently passed Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), whose passage they opposed, could be met by litigation unless legislators amend it to address the governor’s concerns.
Students walk through a quadrangle on the campus of Boston College in this 2018 photo. (Wikimedia Commons/BCLicious)
Two dozen Boston College alumni and supporting groups this week asked the Massachusetts attorney general to investigate the Jesuit school s investment practices related to fossil fuels and possibly compel the school to end them.
The unusual request represents an escalation in the nearly decadelong campaign led by students to press the Boston College administration and board of trustees to divest its $2.6 billion endowment of fossil fuel stocks. While no current students or faculty signed on to the complaint, the student group Climate Justice at BC supported the move.