Climate Change

New research shows the Northeast is the only part of the country where winter snowfall is increasing, not decreasing – but the data the snowy season is also getting shorter.

The head of the Democratic National Committee’s new climate change council was in New Hampshire just ahead of the primary, quietly kicking off efforts to reshape the party’s environmental platform in 2020.

Party leaders voted unanimously to form this council last summer, after taking widespread criticism for declining to hold a climate-focused presidential debate.

It’s a sign of progress for the council’s elected chair, Michelle Deatrick of Michigan. She worked for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and later campaigned for Hillary Clinton.

Many of the Democratic presidential candidates will be in Concord Wednesday for a marathon town hall on climate change.

The day-long forum focuses on young voters – especially students working in or studying climate and clean energy issues.

Each candidate will get about an hour to talk about their climate change plans and take questions from students in related fields.

New England used more wind and solar power than ever last year, but fossil fuels still make up half the electricity generated in the region.

In new data, power grid operator ISO-New England says 49% of electricity generated in New England last year was from natural gas. Less than 1% was from coal or oil. 

Natural gas use has roughly plateaued in the region in the past few years. It peaked in 2015.

The House Science, Technology and Energy Committee held its first hearing on a bill that would propose a New Hampshire state climate action plan. Several committee members had questions about cost, oversight and enforcement. 

Under the proposed bill, the state would create a plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to at least 80 percent below the 1990 levels by 2050. 

The US Department of Agriculture has designated eight New Hampshire Counties as primary natural disaster areas.

Last winter temperatures dropped, then warmed up. Snow melted, and rain would freeze into sheets of ice.

Scientists say winter warm spells – like the one the Northeast saw this past weekend – are in line with predictions for climate change.

Nearly every New Hampshire city and many in surrounding states set daily high temperature records on Saturday and Sunday, with peak warmth in the high 60s.

Candidates campaigning in the final stretch of the New Hampshire presidential primary are redoubling their focus on environmental issues that have long been priorities for local voters.

State lawmakers will try again to pass restrictions on single-use plastic items in the coming legislative session.

The House last year approved a bill saying plastic straws should only be given out on request. But state Senators of both parties agreed to block the measure.

They argued it wasn’t needed -- that public opinion in the state was already turning against excessive plastic use.

Public comment is open on a new regional framework for limiting carbon emissions from vehicles – the largest source of planet-warming greenhouse gases in the Northeast.

Gov. Chris Sununu already says he won't commit New Hampshire to joining the program, known as the Transportation and Climate Initiative, or TCI.

It would limit and price emissions from vehicle fuel distributors. Revenues from that price would be reinvested by the states – as they are under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that caps and prices emissions from power plants in the Northeast.

New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen is the lead author on a letter to the United Nations in support of the Paris climate accords. The UN's climate change convention is currently meeting in Spain to discuss that agreement.

In their letter, Shaheen and 28 other senators say they support and are working on a U.S. government response to climate change, even "in a moment where the commitment of the United States to address climate change seems threadbare."

More than 20 protesters were arrested Sunday trying to block a train from delivering coal to Merrimack Station power plant in Bow.

The climate activists who organized the blockades also marched on the plant at a demonstration in September, when dozens more were arrested.

New Hampshire will soon build high-speed electric vehicle charging stations along major state roadways.

Officials have put out a request for proposals to construct the charging areas over the next 18 months, with some online by the end of next year. 

The state will put up $2 million for the project, drawn from its settlement in the Volkswagen emissions tampering case.

New Hampshire will host the kick-off meeting of a federal offshore wind task force for the Gulf of Maine. The meeting is set for Dec. 12 at the University of New Hampshire.

It will be open to the public, with time for public input.

Franklin Pierce University is creating a new institute that’ll focus on combating climate change.

The Institute for Climate Action will focus on community outreach, education on campus, finding ways to make campus operations more sustainable and partnering with local organizations.

Last year’s report on climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change spurred the creation of the institute. The report said that significant actions need to be taken in the next decade to curb the effects of climate change.

A new study from the Audubon Society says climate change could push some state birds out of their home ranges – including New Hampshire’s purple finch.

The report, released Thursday in a major follow-up to a less detailed 2014 Audubon study, says even a moderate warming scenario could push the iconic finch out of much of New Hampshire.

But senior conservation biologist Pam Hunt with the state Audubon society cautions that the true climate picture for birds may be more complicated than that.

New Hampshire and other Northeast states are considering a carbon pricing system to curb emissions from passenger vehicles.

The transportation sector is New England's top source of the greenhouse gases that exacerbate the effects of climate change.

In New Hampshire, transportation – especially passenger vehicles – contributes more than 40 percent of emissions, while electricity generation contributes around 20 percent.