'Climate Roadmap' targets emissions
Plan aims to reduce greenhouse gases
It was a bold, celebrated goal: In 2001, Massachusetts pledged to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases more than 10 percent within 20 years.
But there was never any clear plan how to do it.
Now, Massachusetts officials are piecing together the state's first detailed blueprint to ensure those reductions actually happen. The Climate Roadmap will break down, for example, the greenhouse gas savings if appliances sold in the state have to meet certain energy-efficiency standards or if people had to pay more for driving during rush hour. Then, it will identify the least expensive way to get the most reductions.
The analysis focuses on a little-talked-about but challenging aspect in slowing global warming: measuring reductions. Governments around the world have set ambitious greenhouse gas targets in the last decade. But many have done so without carefully calculating emissions in many areas, climate specialists say. The result is little accountability to see if targets are met.
"This is going to say . . . what are the impacts on choices we already made and what is the least cost path forward to [our goal]," said Ian Bowles, Massachusetts secretary for Energy and Environmental Affairs. By breaking down emissions into traceable, manageable pieces, he said, the state can focus on the most important reductions.
The effort, expected to be finalized in April, comes as the Legislature puts the finishing touches on a broad energy bill that environmentalists say could help position the state to meet the goal of reducing emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and a more ambitious target recommended by international climate specialists of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The bill, among other items, requires utilities to promote energy efficiency far more aggressively, and gives incentives for wind, solar, and hydropower.
Reductions, officials, say, need to happen soon. New England and eastern Canada emissions are projected to climb between 20 and 50 percent higher than 1990 levels by 2020 if business continues as usual, according to Environment Northeast, a research and advocacy group.
In Massachusetts, annual emissions today are roughly 90 million tons and are projected to grow to as much as 104 million tons a year by 2020, although Bowles says that projection may be too high.
To meet the 2020 goal, the state must get yearly emissions down to roughly 77 million tons. Bowles is hoping to achieve an even more ambitious target of 68 million tons by that year.
While former governor Mitt Romney released a 70-point agenda on climate change in 2004, the document did not say how or if its measures would meet the 2020 goal. Romney later backed away from the plan, expressing uncertainty on whether manmade global warming was real and pulling out of a multistate pact to lower power-plant emissions.
Governor Deval Patrick later reinstated Massachusetts into that pact, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
The state does have some good data, such as from some power plants that keep careful track of emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global-warming gas. But other areas can be so much more difficult to measure, in part because they involve human behavior.
For example, it can be hard to predict greenhouse gas reductions if homes are clustered near mass transit because it's not certain how much less people will drive.
Environmentalists largely applauded Bowles's efforts, saying the roadmap was critical in getting meaningful reductions.
"It is the missing link from turning targets into reality," said Sam Krasnow, policy advocate for Environment Northeast.
Still, once the state figures out its goals, it does not mean those reductions will automatically take place. That's because some efforts can take place only with federal or local action. For example, the state has adopted stringent vehicle emission standards, but it must wait until federal lawsuits are settled to put them into effect.
And while state officials can set broad guidelines for preventing suburban sprawl that can lead to more emissions, local zoning officials often have the final say over housing developments.
Seth Kaplan, vice president for climate advocacy for the Conservation Law Foundation, an advocacy group, wants the state to focus on transportation, which he says has the potential to emit vast more greenhouse gas in the future.
And, he wants state officials to include a wide range of parties in the decision-making to ensure the best possible reductions are chosen.
"This should not be Moses coming off a mountain with a tablet," he said. "It needs to be developed by many people."
Beth Daley can be reached by email by bdaley@globe.com. 