What is the right way for our state to engage on climate change and environmental protection? As someone who considers themself an environmentalist, this is a question I have been asking myself frequently in recent years as we’ve started to see the impacts of climate change here in Vermont.
There are more questions than answers when it comes to this topic, at least that’s how I feel anyway. Vermonters have always stepped up on climate. Decades ago, it was recycling, then it was composting, and now it’s a dizzying array of things from microplastics to forever chemicals. However, the energy transition is perhaps the one that impacts our daily lives the most. Yes, we can carry our groceries home in cloth or paper bags easily enough. But the car we put those groceries in? The home we take them back to? The stove we cook that food on? More than likely they are powered by fossil fuels. And it will cost hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars to switch to an alternative for each of those.
There’s no getting around it. Making these switches will cost money. Lots of it. Estimates range from $5 to $12 trillion annually in global spending to hit the 2050 Paris Climate Accord target. We don’t have a reliable estimate in Vermont in most cases. There is little to no data on cooking appliances (our entire restaurant industry is dependent upon gas stoves), for example, but we do know that there are 510,700 gas and diesel passenger vehicles registered in the state. Compare this to the 7,800 EV’s that are registered. If we assume the average purchase price differential between EV and ICE remains stable at $5,804, then the total economic cost to completely change over Vermont’s fleet would be an additional $2.96 billion. That’s money that couldn’t be spent elsewhere. This is back-of-the-envelope math, but you get the point.
We don’t have reliable numbers yet on the overall cost of the Clean Heat Standard, but the official estimate is nearly $1 billion to administer over the first 10 years of operation. We are still waiting to learn what the total cost to consumers will be, and this does not include the cost of any social safety net program for low-income Vermonters who will continue to heat with fossil fuels out of necessity.
All these recent efforts share a common thread; they focus on carbon reduction. Why? Because the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), passed in 2020, mandates carbon reductions and created a Climate Council tasked with hitting the targets laid out in the bill.
Originally the legislation was billed as Vermont’s commitment to the Paris Climate Accords after the first Trump administration pulled out of them. But the actual language in the bill goes quite a bit further than said agreements. For example, the Paris sought carbon neutrality by 2050, meaning that global carbon emissions netted out with global carbon capture/sequestration. The GWSA requires a 90% carbon reduction over 1990 levels by 2050. Those are very different things.
A straight reduction mandate denies us the opportunity to increase carbon sequestration via conservation to meet a net zero goal. It locks us into addressing only one side of the equation.
Governor Scott and his administration recognized this and voiced support for the Paris Climate Accords but felt that the GWSA went too far. Scott vetoed the bill, but the Legislature overrode him.
Because the mission of the Climate Council is carbon reduction; they do not have to consider overall environmental impact or economic feasibility. This is why they are the ones responsible for putting forward the carbon-pricing schemes for transportation and heating fuels. Both of which would generate massively expensive and regressive costs on Vermonters.
Even more concerning than the actions of the Climate Council is the provision in the GWSA that allows for private right of action. Private citizens (or, more likely, special interest groups) can sue the state if the carbon reduction targets in the GWSA aren’t met under this provision. Furthermore, such legal action could compel state agencies to adopt one of the aforementioned carbon-pricing schemes without the legislature ever taking a vote on it! In fact, taxpayers are already on the hook for legal fees to defend the legislation. And will be further on the hook for whatever fees or taxes that the court decides are necessary to meet the GWSA goals.
There is another aspect of the Paris Climate Accords that is often overlooked. The negotiators recognized that carbon-reduction would not be easy, particularly in the next decade or two. So, the Accords also prioritized climate-resiliency alongside carbon-reduction as a way to address climate change. We don’t talk about this enough, particularly as our state is ravaged by more frequent severe weather events.
Last year Campaign for Vermont released a poll showing that 72% of Vermonters believed the state should be focusing on climate-resiliency instead of carbon-reduction. This is an understandable position as carbon reduction is, as I wrote back in September of last year, a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma. We could cut all our emissions to zero tomorrow, but if every other country doesn’t make similar cuts, then Vermont would have wasted our effort. Resiliency efforts, on the other hand, do have direct benefits to our Vermont communities and will help to avert damage from flooding and wildfires, and improve water quality.
Another inconvenient truth closer to home is that we have our own problems with pollution due to aging municipal infrastructure and agricultural runoff that is poisoning our lakes and waterways. This environmental problem is one of our own making. We can’t point the finger at big multi-national corporations or national political figureheads for this mess.
It is time to rethink the GWSA. The private right of action is unworkable and will leave Vermonters on the hook for costly carbon-cutting measures that may not meaningfully benefit us. Further, the carbon-reduction targets should be tempered to something more realistic, and we should include a more complete picture of environmental goals, rather than just carbon. For example, let’s put water quality benchmarks out there for us to strive for. We also need to have resiliency goals in place to protect our communities as weather events become less predictable. We should expand the scope of the Climate Council to take these more diverse goals into account.
The Legislature is going to have to make some decisions quickly as the lawsuits around GWSA have already started and the Clean Heat Standard landed back in the legislature for approval last month. Now is the time to start contacting your legislators and asking them how they plan to address the issues of climate change and climate resiliency.
Ben Kinsley has over a decade of public policy experience in Vermont. Working for non-profit organizations, he has shaped public policy in areas such as education, elections, and ethics. He currently serves as the Interim Executive Director for Campaign for Vermont, a non-partisan advocacy group seeking to grow the state’s middle class.
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