New Hampshire is creating a large-scale climate change plan for the first time since 2009. But state regulators say adding targets for cutting climate-warming pollution into New Hampshire law is not part of the project.
Instead, officials say they’re focusing on voluntary measures to address greenhouse gases, federally funded programs, and market-based solutions. The planning process comes as New Hampshire glimpses some of the effects of climate change: increasingly intense storms, floods, and heat waves.
The process to create the state’s comprehensive climate action plan is funded by the federal Inflation Reduction Act. Most U.S. states opted into the program, which provided $3 million to create plans that include an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, detailed measures to reduce those emissions and analyses of workforce needs and benefits to lower-income communities.
States are also expected to include greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. To meet that requirement, New Hampshire officials said they plan to take a “bottom-up” approach, choosing measures to cut climate pollution and then calculating targets based on modeling how much those measures could possibly reduce emissions.
But that strategy diverges from the one all other New England states have taken. Those states have put requirements for reducing greenhouse gas emissions into state law, setting deadlines for significant changes.
New Hampshire’s 2009 climate plan recommended 20% reductions by 2025 and 80% reductions by 2050 from 1990 emissions levels – goals in line with the ones other New England states have set. At the time, the plan’s authors wrote that research showed even more aggressive reductions may be required to stabilize the climate.
(Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require emissions to peak before 2025 and for the world to reduce emissions 43% by 2030. Global temperature will stabilize when carbon emissions reach net zero, which would need to happen in the early 2050s to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.)
State lawmakers proposed bills to include emissions reduction goals in state law several years in a row, but none succeeded.
Adam Crepeau, assistant commissioner at the Department of Environmental Services, said the state isn’t basing this climate plan on the 2009 effort, but coming up with a fresh approach – climate planning “the New Hampshire way.”
“We want to make sure that we are doing it in a realistic way that the industries that would be subject to any sort of targets or goals would be able to do it voluntarily,” he said. “We are working really hard to try to get their feedback and make sure that it can actually happen.”
Crepeau said one reason for focusing on voluntary measures rather than a state-enforced emissions goal is the lack of existing laws about greenhouse gas emissions and the lack of authority within state agencies to create that legislation.
Mike Fitzgerald, the assistant director of the air division with the Department of Environmental Services, said it’s been clear over the course of several years that bills to address climate change have not had support in the New Hampshire legislature. But, he said, surveys show that residents care about the issue.
“The people of New Hampshire agree climate change is happening. They agree that it's important. But what needs to be done to address it is not as crystal clear,” he said.
Fitzgerald says he hopes the climate plan will be a resource for people moving forward.
“It’ll give us an idea of what’s possible,” he said. “It may show us that there’s a gap between what’s possible and what some people feel should be done.”
The comprehensive climate action plan is a second step, following the creation of a priority climate action plan earlier this year. That plan showed almost half of the climate-warming emissions New Hampshire puts into the atmosphere come from the transportation sector, and the second-biggest contributor is residential buildings.
The priority climate action plan also qualified states to receive federal funding for climate solutions. After submitting that plan, New Hampshire received funding for a regional program to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps, which can heat homes more efficiently.
But the state of federal funding for measures to cut pollution remains to be seen. President-elect Donald Trump has said he would roll back the Inflation Reduction Act, which could affect the planning process.
Officials said it was too early to know what those effects may be. Funding has already been obligated to New Hampshire for the climate planning process, and they expect it to continue uninterrupted.
The state plans to host meetings throughout 2025 to gather perspectives from a variety of sectors, including transportation, buildings, electricity, agriculture and waste management. New Hampshire residents can send comments and questions to CPRG@des.nh.gov.
The comprehensive climate action plan is due in December 2025.
