Climate Change

Town meeting ballots across New Hampshire on Tuesday will include a resolution in support of carbon pricing, due in part to the efforts of youth climate activists.

The warrant article is spearheaded by a group of nonprofits and advocacy groups, under the name Carbon Cash-Back Coalition.

New Hampshire scientists unveiled a landmark study Friday of how ice storms affect northern forests.

The first-of-its-kind research, from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in North Woodstock, could help landowners and emergency managers plan for future disasters.

New Hampshire's heating fuel industry is trying to recruit workers at a time of low unemployment.

The Dead River Company, which serves Northern New England, is expanding a program to employ and train recent trade school graduates as fuel technicians or truck drivers.

At the same time, training director Dan Carrigan says his company and the industry as a whole are looking to the future of home heating, amid a push to transition away from fossil fuels.

State officials say too much salt is being applied to New Hampshire roads this winter, and they worry that warmer, wetter winters could make the problem worse in future.

State officials are using federal money to look at how rising seas will threaten major highways and connecting routes on the Seacoast.

The project, funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will build a "vulnerability assessment" for the I-95, Route 1 and Route 1A corridors, and local connector roads, including Routes 101 and 286.

Organizers are canceling a long-standing sled dog race in the North Country due to poor weather conditions.

Kit Morgan is on the board of the Tamworth Outing Club, which holds the annual race on Lake Chocorua.

He says there's too much water and thin ice on top of the lake for mushers to get through safely.

Alton Bay's famous ice runway will stay closed this winter due to unsafe ice conditions.

Paul LaRochelle is the state official in charge of the seasonal runway on Lake Winnipesaukee – the only one in the Lower 48 states.

He says the ice around the runway needs to be 12 inches thick to support maintenance vehicles and hundreds of aircraft.

This year, LaRochelle says warm weather has made the ice inconsistent – so he's keeping the runway closed.

Climate activists are facing new charges after appearing in district court in Concord Friday.

They’ve held a series of protests against a coal power plant in Bow that’s the largest left in New England.

Dozens of activists crowded outside the Concord courtroom Friday. Many wore red – not just for Valentine's Day, but to show solidarity, they said.

Governor Chris Sununu on Monday vetoed a bill on net energy metering that was held over from last year's legislative session.

It’s his first veto of the 2020 session, on top of a record number in 2019.

The bipartisan bill was one of lawmakers' latest attempts to increase the limit on how much renewable energy towns and businesses can generate themselves and use to save money.

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.