When he signed Executive Order 569 on Friday, Gov. Charlie Baker put government resolve to work on climate change, harnessing science to solve an enormous problem.
The order commands each executive office to name a climate change coordinator. It sets wheels turning throughout state agencies to help Massachusetts adapt to flooding, extreme weather, drought and wildfire – all of which are expected to worsen as temperatures and sea levels rise due to greenhouse gas emissions.
We’re glad Baker took this step and will explain why.
But first, a complaint.
This governor was elected nearly two years ago. Anyone who voted for him hoping for bold action on the climate should be disappointed it took this long to produce a straightforward, five-page order that in many ways picks up where the administration of former Gov. Deval Patrick left off.
And given a Supreme Judicial Court ruling in May, it may appear that Baker was forced into this, since that court decision compels the state Department of Environmental Protection to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions under the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act. Those limits, the SJC said, must decline yearly, reducing carbon releases.
Better late than never. But there isn’t much time.
The strong language in Baker’s order leaves no question that he sees climate change as a serious threat worthy of remedies across the board. The order makes clear that public health and safety are at risk due to climate change and that the state must lead in the development of plans to adapt to changing conditions.
Baker orders the DEP to hold a hearing by Feb. 24 on ways to reduce carbon releases and to have final regulations ready Aug. 11. That’s a fast track as far as government is concerned – and another reason why Baker should have acted sooner.
To be fair, he came into office needing to build his administration and grapple with other pressing matters, including the opioid crisis and a budget gap. And yet, the order asks the state to “lead by example.” Procrastination, on a matter like the looming climate disaster, isn’t a good lesson.
Baker’s order contains mandates for cities and towns, but pledges state assistance. The executive offices of Energy and Environmental Affairs and Public Safety are deputized to help cities and towns assess their vulnerability to climate change, reckoning with the ways in which specific local “assets” such as infrastructure stand at risk.
Then they will, with promised technical support from the state, devise ways to adapt. Given that there are 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts, those departments must prepare themselves to deliver that advice. It better not come down to the one newly hired climate coordinator in each executive office.
One of the first things to come from Baker’s order, we’re told, will be an internet portal run by the DEP through which people can propose how the agency should go about setting regulatory approaches to lessening the release of greenhouse gases in Massachusetts.
Some may take that, in a Republican governor’s executive order, as an invitation to run interference with the business of cutting carbon. The DEP will no doubt get a lot of dilatory notions from people in the worst-offending sectors, such as transportation. But the rulemakers don’t have much wiggle room.
It falls to that agency to come up with ways to set and meet lower limits on carbon releases.
A press release from the governor’s office Friday noted that the state has been working on the problem since 2008. In American politics, you don’t tip your hat to another party’s successes – so we will here. It was under Patrick’s time in office that the state produced detailed assessments of just how much life will change in Massachusetts as the planet continues to warm, sea levels rise and weather extremes become more common. There is now a Dam and Seawall Repair Fund, a Coastal Resiliency Grant Program, the Lead by Example Program and the Community Clean Energy Resiliency Initiative.
That said, it is encouraging that the DEP will soon be setting timelines. Baker’s order hits the right points, and was applauded by state leaders with the Conservation Law Foundation and the Nature Conservancy.
As a recent two-part commentary in the Gazette by Marty Nathan, M.D., made clear, the picture is bleak.
Only sharp, real and lasting greenhouse gas reductions will enable the state to live within its future carbon means. If it was easy, it might have happened by now.