The Vermont Climate Council adopted the initial Vermont Climate Action Plan today. The plan will help Vermont meet the emissions reductions requirements outlined in the Global Warming Solutions Act and prepare for the impacts of climate change.
The Global Warming Solutions Act created a 23-member Vermont Climate Council to develop a Climate Action Plan strict enough to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80% over the next 28 years. Vermonters can weigh in on this collection of proposals during the coming legislative session, and on Election Day 2022.
What this means for Vermont is that a foundational component of the Climate Action Plan has been pulled out from under, calling into question both the overall viability of the plan and the judgment of the people putting it together.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Vermont Climate Council will have to choose between a clearly inferior climate plan product by the Dec. 1 deadline, or spending more time and taxpayer dollars trying to correct the current climate plan’s flaws.
The Climate Council’s job is to figure out how to reduce Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions to mandated levels set out in the Global Warming Solutions Act. Period. That’s all. They are not concerned with the fallout — economic and otherwise — that will occur if we do all the things necessary to meet that goal.
As council member Sean Brown pointed out, the labor force issues and supply chain issues in Vermont don’t allow for this level of activity. And the money, which he said could be as much as $2 billion, isn’t there to fund it if it were.
The climate action plan will burden every Vermont motorist, every business, every city and town and every school and hospital with new regulations, mandates and taxes. It will likely cripple our economy struggling to come out of the painful years of COVID — and send you the bill.
The Climate Plan will do nothing less than reshape our entire economy, radically alter the way we live and work, and micromanage our landscape. It will change how we travel, build and renovate our homes, and the list goes on. The taxes necessary to make this happen will be staggering.
The problem is that Mr. Duval, who serves as one of the 23 members of the Vermont Climate Council, has taken it upon himself to express in the Vermont media his opinions on why Vermont should remove itself from fossil fuels.
At the Oct. 19 meeting of the Vermont Climate Council, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service and council member June Tierney made a frightening, honest assessment of the proposals the council is preparing to unleash in December.
On Tuesday night, a BIPOC-only meeting was sponsored, publicized, and facilitated by the Vermont Climate Council, a state board empowered by the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) to recommend reductions in carbon emissions.
The Vermont Climate Council met Wednesday to discuss the implementation of the Global Warming Solutions Act, and to restate that social equity should be central to the council’s policies.