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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 reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make people and wildlife less vulnerable to climate impacts by making the natural systems they rely on more resilient.
State Climate Change Priorities
Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Last year, the Conservancy helped pass one of the most progressive pieces of state legislation addressing climate change in the country: the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). The Act calls upon the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) to develop and implement a plan to meet economy-wide greenhouse gas reduction targets for Massachusetts: between 10 and 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, with targets for each decade after that, culminating in an 80 percent reduction by 2050.
The Conservancy is now working to ensure that protecting forests is considered as part of reducing emissions. Our research shows that Massachusetts’ forests capture and sequester 15 percent of the Commonwealth’s annual carbon dioxide emissions. The Conservancy believes that these data hold some significant climate change policy implications that could leverage a new means of land protection and conservation.
Make People & Wildlife Less Vulnerable to Climate Change Impacts
The GWSA also requires the EEA to develop statewide adaptation recommendations to address the impacts of climate change on people and nature. The Conservancy is working with EEA to provide recommendations on statewide measures that help make people and wildlife less vulnerable to climate impacts by making the natural systems they rely on more resilient.
Ensure Environmentally Sound Energy Siting
The Conservancy and our partners have worked with EEA to ensure that siting, operation and decommissioning of wind energy facilities will comply with existing environmental laws and regulations to avoid, minimize and mitigate environmental impacts. The Conservancy is also working with the EEA to develop environmental standards that include science-based criteria, including protecting the integrity large unfragmented forest blocks and to provide robust opportunities for participation and representation from environmental agencies and the conservation community.
Ensure Sustainable Biomass
The Conservancy is working with the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources to develop standards for biomass harvesting that would include sustainability guidelines and a consideration of the net balance of carbon when offering incentives for biomass.
Protect Water Resources
The Conservancy is also working to ensure that renewable energy facilities avoid harming aquatic life, such as through the operation of hydropower and water discharges from biomass facilities.
Federal Legislative Priorities
American Clean Energy and Security Act
Under the leadership of the Commonwealth’s own Congressman Edward Markey, The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the first comprehensive climate change legislation to be passed through either chamber of congress. The fight for climate change legislation now moves to the Senate, which is expected to take up a bill later this summer.
Read an interview with Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, in which he discusses the bill
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 best chance to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change might be this December, when the world’s governments meet in Copenhagen at the United Nations climate change conference. With scientists warning that we need to cut emissions sharply as soon as possible — or else we’ll be gambling with our fate and the fate of the planet — the meetings in Copenhagen have taken on unprecedented importance.
Read how the Conservancy is urging countries to agree to a comprehensive global agreement on climate change.
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).
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