Gov. M. Jodi Rell is expected to sign into law a bill that requires the state to cut its greenhouse gas emissions an ambitious 17 percent from current levels by 2020 and 80 percent from current levels by 2050.
Setting those goals is the easy part. Implementing them will be the hard part.
Although state lawmakers have enacted legislation that moved Connecticut towards less reliance on fossil fuels, such as requiring ratepayers to fund the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund and the Connecticut Energy-Efficiency Fund, there have been no definitive thresholds established to determine success.
If the new proposal is signed into law, it will step up the public sector’s role in reducing Connecticut’s carbon footprint with a clear finish line.
And it needs to. The most recent data available suggests that Connecticut’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, as does home energy use.
At the same time, the state should continue to push forward to curtail emissions from private industry by working with other states and the federal government toward a cap-and-trade system for utilities and other heavy industry.
Such a regional or national system would penalize heavy emitters — such as traditional coal-fired power plants — that exceed established greenhouse gas emission limits and reward the cleaner industries that fall short of their pollution caps by allowing them to sell their unused pollution rights.
That would give industry a market incentive to slash greenhouse gas emissions or even switch to alternative fuel sources.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Rell’s “One Thing” campaign urging consumers to identity one small step they can take to cut energy consumption is a step in the right direction.
And the state’s constitutional officers might consider taking one small step as well: change their driving habits and their state-issued rides.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently pledged to swap his work car, a gas-guzzling Ford Crown Vic, for a Honda Civic hybrid. His promise came a day after an Associated Press reporter confronted him with records showing that he and his state driver racked up 69,000 miles in less than a year, much of it commuting back and forth to his home in Greenwich.
His Crown Vic — the same vehicle used by the state’s other three constitutional officers, Treasurer Denise L. Nappier, Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz and Comptroller Nancy Wyman — gets 15 miles per gallon in the city and 23 on the highway.
“I feel somewhat embarrassed about driving a car that is so fuel inefficient,” Blumenthal told the AP. “Here I am, one of the chief enforcers of our environmental laws. I consider it sort of untenable for any of us to be driving these vehicles.”
On the other hand, it’s a stretch to imagine Blumenthal and his driver — and Rell and hers — tooling around in Honda Civic hybrids. Would they still sit in the back seat or move to the front passenger seat for the sake of legroom?
A better compromise would be to phase out the Crown Vics and replace them with hybrid SUVs that get 30 mpg.
Changing the mindsets about the environment is a slow process — even among those who claim a commitment to fighting global warming. There’s a world of difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.
