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Stop Global Warming Connecticut

To combat global warming in Connecticut, Environment Northeast joined with Clean Water Action, Connecticut Fund for the Environment, Environment Connecticut, Environmental Defense, and the Nature Conservancy to call on Connecticut’s elected officials to commit to new binding global warming reduction requirements and the next set of climate change policies.

Background

With the federal government lagging on action to reduce global warming pollution, states are enacting their own legislation. In 2006, California was the first state to pass a law, AB...
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Stop Global Warming Connecticut


Representative Pat Widlitz points to ENE graph of
CT carbon emissions at March 18 press conference
for Global Warming Solutions Bill HB 5600. ENE's Jessie
Stratton is pictured at right.

 

Connecticut's new law enacts a mandatory cap on global warming pollution, requiring emissions cuts to 10% below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80% below 2001 levels by 2050. Mandating a reduction in emissions will enable the state to meet the targets it set in its 2004, Act Concerning Climate Change.

 

The law directs the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to produce an inventory of the state's emissions.  It also requires the DEP to monitor development of low-carbon fuel standards by other states, and to investigate market-based compliance mechanisms to achieve greenhouse gas reductions.

 

The law further directs the Department of Transportation to investigate expansion of high-speed and light rail passenger and freight train service.