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- In The News
- June 2024
AP: Maryland agencies must submit a plan to help fight climate change, governor says
June 4, 2024
Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed a comprehensive executive order that deploys a whole-of-government approach to fighting climate change, writes the Associated Press.
“State agencies in Maryland will be required to submit a plan to help address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, under an executive order signed by Gov. Wes Moore on Tuesday.
The plan calls for all state agencies to submit a report to the governor by Nov. 1 showing how they will help the state meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2031 to 60% of 2006 levels, the governor said at a news conference in Baltimore. The report must include steps and a timeline for implementation for all required actions within each agency’s purview. But the governor’s office did not specify what those actions would be.
‘These proposals must be submitted by every single state agency, because every single state agency is going to have a role to play and is going to have accountability measures that we must meet,’ Moore, a Democrat, said before signing the order at the Henderson-Hopkins School in Baltimore.
The Moore administration also aims to achieve 100% clean energy by 2035 and reach net-zero emissions by 2045. That means at least as much carbon would be removed from the atmosphere as what is being emitted.”
About the Alliance
Launched on June 1, 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by President Trump’s initial decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the Alliance has grown to include 24 governors from across the U.S. representing approximately 60% of the U.S. economy and 55% of the U.S. population. Governors in the Alliance have pledged to collectively reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28% by 2025, 50-52% by 2030, and 61-66% by 2035, all below 2005 levels, and collectively achieve overall net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as practicable, and no later than 2050.
The Alliance’s states and territories will continue to advance innovative and impactful climate solutions to grow the economy, create jobs, and protect public health, and have a long record of action and results. In fact, the Alliance reduced its collective net greenhouse gas emissions by 19% between 2005 and 2022, while increasing collective GDP by 30%, and is on track to meet its near-term climate goal by reducing collective GHG emissions 26% below 2005 levels by 2025. The coalition’s states and territories are employing more workers in the clean energy sector, achieving lower levels of dangerous air pollutants, and preparing more effectively for climate impacts and executing more pre-disaster planning than the rest of the country.
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