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Climate Change

 

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Climate Change in Maine

Some of Maine’s iconic species and landscapes could be at risk from climate change.
 Canada lynx

Temperature increases could force species like the Canada lynx, whose southern limits on the East Coast are in Maine, to contract their ranges northward into Canada.

Piping plover
A rapid sea-level rise would destroy dune and marsh habitats, further endangering rare coastal birds like the piping plover.

St. John River
The unique plant communities that live along the banks of the St. John River depend on the ice that scours those banks each winter—ice that might not form fully as temperatures rise.

 

The debate is over. Rising sea levels, record heat, devastating hurricanes, damaged coral reefs and increases in disease-carrying pests—science has linked all of these impacts to climate change. With half a century invested in conserving vulnerable habitats, the Conservancy will not sit by and watch these changes destroy the places we’ve worked to protect.

The science is complex, but the facts are simple: gases produced from vehicles, power plants, slash and burn deforestation and other sources are building up in the atmosphere. They are acting like a thick blanket over our planet, trapping heat and transforming life on Earth. It is a reality that already threatens the health of plants, animals and people worldwide.

In partnership with policy makers, communities, businesses, scientists, industry leaders and other non-governmental organizations, The Nature Conservancy is taking action now to avert the impacts of climate change that may permanently alter the lands and waters we all depend upon for survival. The Conservancy is focusing on three strategies—reducing emissions from deforestation, helping natural areas adapt to the impacts of climate change and supporting policies to reduce emissions.

"For more than 50 years, we’ve invested in conservation across Maine and around the world," says Mike Tetreault, executive director of The Nature Conservancy in Maine. "Climate change threatens these investments. Changing weather and temperature patterns could mean the extinction of many plant and animal species, reducing the impact of years of on-the-ground conservation. Preserves established to protect a particular ecosystem could suddenly be outside the climatic range for that habitat."

The Conservancy is identifying approaches to climate change that fit our commitments to partnerships, science-based conservation and innovative, market-based methods, and Maine has taken on a central role in these efforts.

There has been little prospect for strong federal action to combat climate change. But several years ago, the Conservancy became involved in one of the United States’ most promising regional programs to address the problem, the Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, pronounced "reggie"). RGGI is a market-based cap and trade program designed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide—one of the primary greenhouse gases—from electric power plants in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states. The agreement, the first of its kind in the nation, sets an important precedent for future climate change policies nationally and globally.

The Conservancy took an active interest in RGGI from its inception, working with stakeholders—including state governments, energy companies and environmental advocacy organizations—to establish a model rule for this historic initiative. In December 2005, these efforts paid off when Maine joined six other Northeastern states—Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont—in agreeing to a model set of regulations for RGGI. Since that time, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maryland have committed to join as well.

"RGGI is a tangible first step towards addressing carbon dioxide emissions," explains Sarah Murdock, senior policy advisor for the Conservancy’s Global Climate Change Initiative. "It’s also an important model that can be applied on a larger scale. The Conservancy is also working on the ground to establish study sites and tools that can be used to lessen the impacts of climate change."

Under RGGI, the ten states will launch a mandatory regional cap and trade system that uses emissions credits or allowances to limit the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Beginning in 2009, emissions of CO2 from power plants in the region would be capped at approximately current levels with this cap remaining in place until 2015. The states would then begin reducing emissions incrementally over a four-year period to achieve a 10 percent reduction by 2019.

"The Conservancy and partners worked hard to ensure that RGGI established a system that could work at the regional, national and international scales," says Kate Dempsey, senior policy advisor for the Conservancy in Maine. "And already that effort is getting results. The initiative will allow states or even countries outside the Northeastern US to enter agreements with the RGGI states to trade carbon credits, and Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger of California has announced that he hopes to link California’s carbon market to RGGI."

Work on RGGI here in Maine is not finished. This spring, the state legislature will consider several bills that would establish a system for allocating the carbon credits. The most likely system involves an auction in which the proceeds from energy producers’ purchases of carbon credits will be used to establish programs that improve efficiency in the generation of electricity—reducing carbon emissions, as well as emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, all pollutants that have negative effects on the environment and human health.

Policy milestones like RGGI are one example of how the Conservancy is working to develop scientific and market-based solutions to reduce the pace of climate change and the severity of its impacts. By finding ways to help nature adapt, mobilizing government action and developing incentives to protect our forests, we can help to ensure that the lands and waters critical to both nature and people remain healthy for generations to come.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Bruce Kidman/TNC (logs); Photo © Jon Allen (icicles); Photo © Bill Silliker Jr. (Canada lynx); Photo © Betty Darling Cottrille (Piping plover); Photo © Josh Royte/TNC (St. John River).