Vermont Global Warming Solutions Act
In September 2020, the Vermont Legislature passed the Global Warming Solutions Act, a climate-action accountability framework. The newly enacted Global Warming Solutions Act (Act 153 of 2020), creates a planning process and framework to ensure stepped, strategic action on climate change. It sets deadlines for the state to cut harmful climate pollution, with the 26 percent Paris Climate Accord reduction target as the first milestone and achieving net zero by 2050. The Solutions Act sets in place guideposts for how Vermont must meet these targets. It requires a focus on a just transition; reducing energy burdens and minimizing negative impacts on rural and marginalized communities, as well as rebuilding and growing the State’s economy while protecting public health, enhancing community resilience and harnessing the power of the State’s natural systems to store and capture carbon.
Fundamentally, the Solutions Act is an action framework. It will require state government to lead in the advancement and implementation of job-creating, pollution-reducing climate solutions and, as a last remedy, create a venue for Vermonters to hold the State accountable through the courts if further action is needed to hit the targets. Massachusetts, Connecticut and, more recently, Maine are among the states that have a Solutions Act framework in place; a framework that has enabled them to make far more climate progress than Vermont to date. This new law sets the stage for Vermont, finally, to make much-needed, job-creating progress.
Vermont Climate Council
In October, the State appointed 23 members to the Vermont Climate Council, the body under the Solutions Act that will serve as the lead entity to craft the required Climate Action Plan to achieve the targets, with an initial draft due December 2021. Fifteen legislative appointments were made, representing low-income, small business, youth, the farming community, and many other perspectives and expertise. VNRC’s Energy and Climate Program Director/VECAN Coordinator Johanna Miller is among the appointees to the Council. In February 2021, five subcommittees were formed to lead the process of developing recommendations and strategies for the Climate Action Plan. The five subcommittees are 1) Rural Resilience and Adaptation 2) Agriculture and Ecosystems 3) Cross-Sector Mitigation 4) Just Transitions and 5) Science and Data.
The Initial Climate Action Plan was adopted in December 2021. Read the plan here.
Find more information about the Solutions Act, the Climate Council and the Climate Action Plan below:
Learn more about it here or read the bill, as passed, here
Vermont Conservation Voters Factsheet
The role of the Solutions Act in a resilient recovery from COVID-19.
Global Warming Solutions Act FAQ
Find more information, including the full list of Climate Council Appointees and Subcommittee members at the Official Vermont Climate Council Website.
Watch this VECAN webinar to learn more about the Climate Action Plan and how it relates and to the State’s Comprehensive Energy Plan.