Commentary: Delaware trails in ambition to cut greenhouse gas emissions

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Delaware Gov. John Carney unveiled in early November the state’s most comprehensive plan yet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow the effects of climate change.

One of its top priorities is reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. By the administration’s own admission, though, it’s not a very ambitious plan.

“Modeling indicated that, with no further action, Delaware’s net emissions would decline by 25% from 2005 levels, falling just short of the state’s goal of 26–28% emissions reduction by 2025,” state environmental officials disclosed in the 112-page report.

Some environmentalists say they were disappointed that Carney, a Democrat, didn’t propose a tougher emissions-reduction goal. The 26%–28% target matches the pledge set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement that has been adopted by 196 nations and the European Union.

“While we’re thrilled the governor (aligned the plan with) the Paris accord reduction goals, we don’t have to do very much to meet those goals,” said Sherri Evans-Stanton, director of Delaware’s Sierra Club. “So we want to see much more of a commitment on the state’s part to reduce greenhouse gases.”

The plan says that by taking “practical climate actions,” the state can realize a steeper cut in the future — a 40% decrease by 2035, compared with 2005 levels.

But that would still fall short of the targets adopted by most mid-Atlantic states. Maryland has put in place a 40% reduction goal by 2030, five years sooner than the Carney plan. New Jersey and Pennsylvania have each set 80% cuts to be met by 2050. State officials concede that Delaware would likely need to implement more varied, stringent goals to keep pace with its neighbors.

Meanwhile, some critics faulted the plan for laying out general actions, rather than specific steps, to help communities arm themselves against rising seas, heavier rainfall and other expected climate impacts.

Still, one of the state’s top climate experts said the plan presents a realistic way forward for combating climate change on several fronts.

“It does what I think we should be doing, which is, what can we do about these changes that are happening?” said John Callahan, a climatologist at the Delaware Geological Survey. “I think it’s a very good plan. Are they sufficient for Delaware? Yes. It will reduce the amount of greenhouse gases by a significant amount and help us adapt to the impacts we’ve been seeing.”

Those impacts include 1 foot of sea level rise at the Lewes tide gauge since 1900. Projections suggest another 9-23 inches on top of that by the middle of this century, the report warns. None of that is good news in what is the lowest-lying state by average elevation.

Average air temperatures have risen 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895 and are predicted to surge by as much as 4.5 degrees by midcentury. And average precipitation is forecast to increase 10% by 2100, with much of that extra rainfall coming in more intense bursts. That could lead to more pollution from stormwater runoff in waterways flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. (About one-third of the state, generally the region west of U.S. 13, drains to the bay.)

Peggy Schultz, head of the climate change and energy committee of Delaware’s League of Women Voters, said she appreciated the plan’s tendency toward broad recommendations over micromanaging.

“It’s going to point us in the right direction,” she said. “You have a lot of options, so we can go any number of ways. It’s not maybe as prescriptive of a plan as some people would have liked, but it’s a very democratic plan. It’s very open-ended.”

The plan, for example, outlines several actions to encourage offshore wind development, such as coordinating with neighboring states to set uniform policies and upgrading the electricity grid to accommodate the new source of energy. But it doesn’t set a timeline or specific goals for the amount of power that should be generated by wind.

That’s fine, Schultz said.

“If (the climate plan) was prescriptive, I don’t think it would have seen the light of day,” she said.

The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control developed the plan over the course of a year, with some of the policies shaped by feedback from more than 250 participants in public hearings conducted in March 2020 and about 400 more in October that year.

It isn’t Delaware’s first climate plan — that would be the 2000 strategy that called for a 7% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2010. But an update was critical, said Susan Love, head of DNREC’s Climate and Sustainability Section. Over the past decade, for example, the state’s largest source of greenhouse gases has shifted from electricity generation to transportation, as power plants increasingly turned to burning natural gas instead of coal.

Love said she expects the state to exceed its 2025 emissions goal. Carney pledged in 2017 to meet or exceed the 26%–28% target, joining a coalition of 24 states to do so after then-President Donald Trump announced the country’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. (Hours after being sworn into office last year, President Joe Biden recommitted the U.S. to the landmark accord.)

Love defended the selection of the Paris target, saying that the Carney administration’s plan creates a blueprint for actions the state can take to reduce emissions for years to come. In the transportation sector alone, actions such as offering incentives to buy electric vehicles and setting a low-carbon fuel standard can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1.8 million tons by 2050, the plan suggests.

“State action is critically important to meeting our nation’s goals and meeting global climate change goals,” she said. “The things we do in Delaware are extremely impactful, even though we’re in a small state.”

Delaware lawmakers have taken some climate steps, such as requiring utilities to derive 40% of their energy from renewable sources by 2035 and joining the Northeast’s carbon cap-and-trade program, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. But some climate advocates worry that, without the power of law to support them, Carney’s emission-reduction goals could be ignored or even scrapped by future leaders.

“We’re kind of in the backdoor committed to this,” said Schultz of the League of Women Voters.

Carney’s plan is a “good start,” said Evans-Stanton of the Sierra Club. Now, she said, she and her fellow advocates need to press for stronger targets and work to translate what’s on paper into concrete action.

“The question is, ‘Is it enough in the time that we’ve got?’” she said. “And we’re saying, ‘We’ve got to do more.’”

Jeremy Cox is a writer for the Bay Journal, where this was first published.

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