By Sarah Osorio, Sierra Club Maine Volunteer
“Unless there are immediate, rapid, and large scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 degree Celsius will be beyond reach,” wrote the IPCC in its most recent report. The statement underscores the urgency behind our work at the Sierra Club and the work of the Maine Climate Council, which was created by Governor Mills in 2019. A year and a half later, the four-year plan for climate action, Maine Won’t Wait, was published, outlining the council’s goals and strategies for decreasing Maine’s greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and 80% by 2050—and for achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. Now, as we approach the end of 2021, we’re reflecting on the progress made towards meeting this Plan’s ambitious goals and heeding the warning of the IPCC and so many other concerned scientists, environmentalists, and activists.
Work across all 8 strategic Plan areas is ongoing and impressive as stakeholders come together to create committees, write plans, launch pilots, create RFPs, support legislation, and engage with the community. You can watch the Climate Council’s most recent meeting to discuss progress in 2021 here.
In 2021, significant funding and several legislative measures have been awarded and approved, paving the way for impactful accomplishments, including:
- More than 28,000 high-efficiency heat pumps were installed in Maine buildings, marking a major milestone toward the governor’s target of installing 100,000 new heat pumps by 2025
- A ban on climate-harming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) was enacted
- Maine became the 9th state to adopt battery storage targets for renewable energy
- Maine incorporated sea level rise projections into state laws and rules
- A study of how to include equity in climate decisions by the state was launched
- There has been advancement of floating offshore wind research and development
- New incentives for energy efficiency in commercial buildings were announced
- On July 19, Governor Mills signed into law the Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan which provides unprecedented funding for infrastructure resiliency, energy efficiency, clean energy jobs and innovation
The Sierra Club was instrumental in pushing through three legislative measures, which lead to some of the aforementioned outcomes (LD 99 – An Act To Require the State to Divest Itself of Assets Invested in the Fossil Fuels Industry, LD 1682 – An Act To Require Consideration of Climate and Equity Impacts by the Public Utilities Commission, and LD 1659 – An Act To Create the Maine Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator).
For a full list of the legislative measures enacted in 2021, please visit www.sierraclub.org/maine/legislative.
You can stay up to date on the Climate Council’s progress here.