New Jersey Will Be First State to Require Building Permits to Consider the Climate Crisis

New Jersey will be the first state in the U.S. to require builders to take the climate crisis into consideration before seeking permission for a project.
Gov. Phil Murphy announced the new regulations Monday as part of the final version of the state's master energy plan, which commits New Jersey to achieving 50 percent clean energy by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050, according to NJ Advance Media. But while The New York Times pointed out that other states have adopted a 2050 100 percent renewable energy goal, New Jersey will be the first to require that projects seeking Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) permits consider both how their projects' emissions will contribute to global warming and how climate change will impact their building plans.
"This is a big deal," director of the water and climate team at the Natural Resources Defense Council Rob Moore told The New York Times. "For New Jersey to step to the forefront and say, 'We're going to look at future climate impacts, and that it's going to be a driver of our decision-making' — that's exactly what all 50 states need to be doing."
Our Energy Master Plan will: 💡Drive a world-leading innovation economy 🌎Ensure environmental justice for all reside… https://t.co/6uSgJIeAUh— Governor Phil Murphy (@Governor Phil Murphy)1580159791.0
New Jersey has a particularly good reason to consider how climate might impact new construction projects. The state has 130 miles of coastline and is especially vulnerable to sea level rise. Murphy cited a Rutgers study that found that the state's sea levels were projected to rise more than one foot by 2030 and two feet by 2050, NJ Advance Media explained.
"Quite frankly, it will be hard for future generations to create their Jersey Shore memories if the Jersey shore becomes only a memory," Murphy said. "We are not gonna let this keep happening without a fight."
To lead this fight, Murphy signed an executive order calling on DEP to craft the the Protecting Against Climate Threat (PACT) rules, the Daily Record reported. Those rules will include the requirement that the permitting process consider sea level rise and greenhouse gas emissions. PACT will also include new air pollution controls and compile a complete picture of New Jersey's emissions so that it can reduce them to 80 percent below 2006 levels by 2050.
Murphy asked the DEP to have the new regulations finalized and ready to be implemented by January 2022, The New York Times explained.
However, some environmental groups criticized that timeline, saying it would allow more than a dozen new fossil fuel projects to slide in before that deadline, according to the Daily Record.
Empower NJ, a coalition of green groups, instead calls for a ban on all new fossil fuel projects.
"Without a moratorium on all new fossil fuel projects, we are losing precious time — time we don't have to waste in the race against climate change," Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, told the Daily Record.
Green groups are also concerned that the 2050 clean energy goal calls for 100 percent "carbon neutral" energy. That means nuclear plants and offset natural gas can still be used.
"The (plan) still defines clean energy to include incinerators, natural gas, biogas and others," Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, told NJ Advance Media. "It does not call for a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects or a 45% reduction of emissions by 2030, and will not get the state to zero carbon by 2050."
However, other groups were pleased with the plan.
"Governor Murphy's actions today put New Jersey at the forefront of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build a healthier, more prosperous, clean energy future," Tom Gilbert, campaign director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and ReThink Energy NJ, told the Daily Record.
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- Redwoods are the world's tallest trees.
- Now scientists have discovered they are even bigger than we thought.
- Using laser technology they map the 80-meter giants.
- Trees are a key plank in the fight against climate change.
They are among the largest trees in the world, descendants of forests where dinosaurs roamed.
Pixabay / Simi Luft
<p><span>Until recently, measuring these trees meant scaling their 80 meter high trunks with a tape measure. Now, a team of scientists from University College London and the University of Maryland uses advanced laser scanning, to create 3D maps and calculate the total mass.</span></p><p>The results are striking: suggesting the trees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">may be as much as 30% larger than earlier measurements suggested.</a> Part of that could be due to the additional trunks the Redwoods can grow as they age, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a process known as reiteration</a>.</p>New 3D measurements of large redwood trees for biomass and structure. Nature / UCL
<p>Measuring the trees more accurately is important because carbon capture will probably play a key role in the battle against climate change. Forest <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/carbon-sequestration-natural-forest-regrowth" target="_blank">growth could absorb billions of tons</a> of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.</p><p>"The importance of big trees is widely-recognised in terms of carbon storage, demographics and impact on their surrounding ecosystems," the authors wrote<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank"> in the journal Nature</a>. "Unfortunately the importance of big trees is in direct proportion to the difficulty of measuring them."</p><p>Redwoods are so long lived because of their ability to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cope with climate change, resist disease and even survive fire damage</a>, the scientists say. Almost a fifth of their volume may be bark, which helps protect them.</p>Carbon Capture Champions
<p><span>Earlier research by scientists at Humboldt University and the University of Washington found that </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302584" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Redwood forests store almost 2,600 tonnes of carbon per hectare</a><span>, their bark alone containing more carbon than any other neighboring species.</span></p><p>While the importance of trees in fighting climate change is widely accepted, not all species enjoy the same protection as California's coastal Redwoods. In 2019 the world lost the equivalent of <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30 soccer fields of forest cover every minute</a>, due to agricultural expansion, logging and fires, according to The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).</p>Pixabay
<p>Although <a href="https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/1420/files/original/Deforestation_fronts_-_drivers_and_responses_in_a_changing_world_-_full_report_%281%29.pdf?1610810475" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rate of loss is reported to have slowed in recent years</a>, reforesting the world to help stem climate change is a massive task.</p><p><span>That's why the World Economic Forum launched the Trillion Trees Challenge (</span><a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a><span>) and is engaging organizations and individuals across the globe through its </span><a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o00000vOf09AAC/trillion-trees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uplink innovation crowdsourcing platform</a><span> to support the project.</span></p><p>That's backed up by research led by ETH Zurich/Crowther Lab showing there's potential to restore tree coverage across 2.2 billion acres of degraded land.</p><p>"Forests are critical to the health of the planet," according to <a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a>. "They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers."</p><p><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor">Reposted with permission from the </em><span><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/redwoods-store-more-co2-and-are-more-enormous-than-we-thought/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></span></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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