Exciting news for Maryland climate action aficionados! A plenary session of the Maryland Commission on Climate Change convened in Baltimore today for a final discussion and review of their hotly anticipated Climate Action Plan, and I had a front row seat to all the action. The Plan is officially scheduled for public release on June 25th, so mark your calendars and prepare a nice cozy spot to kick back and enjoy what is sure to be a truly climatolicious read.
Though access to advance copies of the report has been restricted thus far to Commission members and government officials, the Commissioners did drop a few tantalizing hints as to its content. According to commissioner George “Tad” Aburn, the real meat of the report is contained in Chapter 2 – a comprehensive assessment of climate change in MD – Chapter 4 on carbon reduction strategies and Chapter 5 on adaptation strategies. Most of the content is sure to be on the wonky side, but for those of you who’d prefer a more publicly accessible version, fear not, there’s an executive summary for the uninitiated. Indeed, the report contains something for climate watchers of all stripes. Of particular interest to the CCAN community is the Chapter entitled Next Steps which discusses work that will need to be done in coming months to turn the report’s stellar recommendations into stellar public policy. To that end, the Commissioners will be meeting informally with environmental, labor, and industrial interests over the next few months to start hammering out a policy road map that everyone can live with. A more formal stakeholder process will follow in September, and the Commission will also sit down with Governor O’Malley sometime before summer’s end.
At the end of what turned out to be the shortest meeting in the Commission’s history the commissioners formally ratified the new report by unanimous vote. If the report ends up bearing legislative fruit, it would undoubtedly propel Maryland to the head of the learning curve on the national climate action front by putting the state on a path to an spectacularly ambitious 50 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020, and 90 percent by 2050. Such bold action would be particularly apropos for a state that is so vulnerable to climate change, and would set a fantastic example for other states and our foot-dragging federal neighbors to follow. So lets make sure that our legislators get on the ball this year and heed the recommendations of the Commission. The rewards of action will be a boon to Maryland and the country at large; the cost of inaction could be unthinkable.
Just how unthinkable? Log on to the Commission’s website on the 25th and download your personal copy of the report to find out.
