Gov. John Bel Edwards today signed two executive orders to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance coastal resilience.
The first order, JBE 2020-18, formally establishes the Climate Initiatives Task Force, a group of stakeholders who will study and make recommendations to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions. The second executive order, JBE 2020-19, provides steps to improve state government by coordinating adaptation efforts more comprehensively across state agencies under the leadership of the state’s first Chief Resilience Officer.
The Climate Initiatives Task Force consists of representatives from the scientific community, state government and private sector. Their charge is to develop strategies for curtailing Louisiana’s greenhouse gas emissions in a manner that fully recognizes the state’s extreme climate vulnerabilities as well as the characteristics of its energy-intensive economy. Emissions reduction goals set for the Task Force include cuts of net greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% by 2025, 40% to 50% by 2030, and 100% by 2050.
Louisiana faces challenges as the only state where industrial sector emissions make up more than half of a state’s total emissions. The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association will be a partner in the task force, says Lori Leblanc, interim LMOGA president.
The resilience work outlined in the second executive order has been named the Adaptive Governance Initiative and aims to find ways the government can better address the long-term problem of coastal change. The work has been designed and executed through a partnership between the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities and the Center for Planning Excellence.
Secretaries from 16 different government agencies have already appointed representatives to coordinate on the Adaptive Governance Initiative. The Climate Initiatives Task Force will produce an update to Louisiana’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory by the end of 2020, an interim report by February 2021, and a final climate strategy document by the following February. See the full announcement.
