Governor Cooper today (Friday, Jan. 7) issued an executive order that sets new statewide goals on environmental justice and climate, including transportation electrification.
Executive Order 246, “North Carolina’s Transformation to a Clean, Equitable Economy,” directs state agencies to incorporate environmental justice and equity considerations into their work and to each name an environmental justice lead to take actions that advance the order's directives. Further, it requires agencies to develop public participation plans informed by input from historically underserved communities.
"We’re pleased that this executive order reflects concerns long expressed by North Carolina’s environmental justice community, and that Governor Cooper considers the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions as critical to addressing systemic environmental injustice in our state." said Cynthia Satterfield, state director of the N.C. Sierra Club.
The order sets a more aggressive goal of a 50% reduction in North Carolina’s greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030, and net zero emissions by 2050. It directs the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to update the state greenhouse gas inventory by end of January.
On clean transportation, EO 246 sets a higher statewide goal for zero-emission vehicles of 1.25 million by 2030, far above the goal of 80,000 ZEVs by 2025 set in the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) 2019 ZEV plan. Further, the order directs DOT and DEQ to create a plan to decarbonize the transportation sector by April 2023. Transportation emissions are the second leading contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in North Carolina and the top contributor across the United States.
"Since transportation emissions are the nation's top contributor to climate change, we’re very pleased that the executive order sets up a pathway to decarbonize North Carolina’s transportation sector," Satterfield said. “This executive order answers the need to move beyond fossil-fueled transportation."