The international scientific community has come to a consensus: climate change is happening now, and human activity is primarily responsible. What does this mean for Massachusetts’ lands and waters?

Rivers will flow lower in the summer, while intense seasonal rain brings more inland flooding to some areas. Iconic New England tree species like sugar maples will migrate north, removing their fiery foliage and trademark syrup. Rising and warming ocean waters will infiltrate inland and storms surges will erode valuable shoreline. Species at the edge of their range could disappear forever.

But there is hope. With half a century invested in conserving habitats around the world, the Conservancy is committed to working globally and locally to slow the pace of climate change and help human and natural communities prepare for coming impacts. We support a two-pronged approach to climate change policy: encouraging public policies that will decrease emissions of heat-trapping gases and reducing the impacts of climate change on the lands and waters on which we all depend.

State Legislative Priorities

Pass the Energy Bill
The Massachusetts Legislature passed a bill that would boost energy efficiency and renewable energy. Added to the bill were amendments written with input from the Conservancy that would establish a commission to develop environmental guidelines for the siting or expansion of energy facilities and help ensure that hydroelectric facilities on dams meet low-impact standards. The Conservancy is working to strengthen these amendments as a joint committee of House and Senate members works out differences between their versions of the bill.

Pass the Global Warming Solutions Act
Senator Marc Pacheco’s Global Warming Solutions Act complements the Energy Bill by requiring cuts in global warming pollution from all emission sources in Massachusetts by 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. At the urging of the Conservancy, the bill also includes a statewide habitat plan to address the more immediate impacts of climate change on nature. This bill has just been approved in the Senate, and we will now work to pass it in the House. Get the facts on the Global Solutions Act.

Support Funding for Climate Change Resiliency and Adaptation
The Conservancy is working with the Massachusetts Administration and Legislature to support policy, planning and funding to promote the resiliency of habitats and the survival of plant and animal species. At the urging of the Conservancy and our partners, the Administration included climate change adaptation programs in the state’s Environmental Bond bill for capital spending over the next five years. Read more about the Environmental Bond Bill.

Implement the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative 
The Conservancy partnered with environmental and energy organizations across the state to encourage the Commonwealth to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the first mandatory, market-based program in the United States to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from large power plants. We are now working with the Department of Environmental Protection and Division of Energy Resources to include avoided deforestation and sustainable forest management as offset options in the RGGI regulations.

Federal Legislative Priorities

Pass the Lieberman-Warner Act
The Lieberman-Warner Act would establish a federal program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power, industry and transportation sectors by 70 percent by 2050. The bill strategically allocates emission allowances to energy efficiency and dedicates 20 percent of the expected revenues from the sale of emissions allowances toward conservation. Learn more about the legislation.

Global Action on Climate Change

Climate change requires both local and global action. Just as the Conservancy is working on Beacon Hill and on Capitol Hill to encourage policies that will decrease emissions and bolster the health and resiliency of our critical natural areas, we are also working at the global scale to urge countries to agree to a comprehensive global agreement on climate change.

The emission reduction commitments that industrialized countries have made under the Kyoto Protocol are set to expire in 2012, and the world needs a new comprehensive agreement that includes all major emitting countries and all major emissions sources. In early December 2007, governments from around the globe gathered in Bali, Indonesia to meet under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and discussed what is needed to reach a future international agreement.

The Nature Conservancy played a key role at Bali, advancing recognition of the value of carbon in forests and the use of nature-based strategies to adapt and prepare for climate change impacts. 
Read how we are helping to frame the global discussion.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Jennifer Henman/TNC (Eroding shoreline caused by rise in sea level); Photo © George C. Gress/TNC (Sugar Maples (Acer saccharum).