Massachusetts Announces Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2025 & 2030

The Baker-Polito Administration on June 30 published the Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2025 and 2030 (2025/2030 CEP). The plan provides an extensive and detailed approach to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 33 percent compared to 1990 levels, by 2025 and by a minimum of 50 percent by 2030, in order to reach Massachusetts long term goal of being a net zero emissions state by 2050. Moreover, Massachusetts has a mandatory requirement to reduce carbon emissions by at least 25 percent from the 1990 baseline by 2020 and the administration reported that emissions were actually 31.4 percent below the 1990 level.

The 2025/2030 CEP plan is based on the acknowledgement that climate change presents a distinctive and potentially irreparable risk, and it emphasises the Commonwealth’s collective plan for a 2050 future in which heat in homes, electricity in vehicles and the power grid can all work with a minimum dependence on fossil fuels. Furthermore, the plan states that natural and working lands need to be safeguarded, better managed, and restored, in order to improve carbon sequestration.  The plan also affirms the 2025/2030 CEP will deliver better paying jobs, enhanced public health, lower consumer costs and an overall better quality of life for all residents.

More specifically, the plan details that Massachusetts will achieve its emission limits via two principal approaches. The first approach is to electrify non-electric energy uses and the second is to decarbonize the electricity system. In this way, the plan strives to alleviate transportation and energy systems efficiency to reduce energy expenditure and the costs of transition. Additionally, the plan has goals, strategies and policies that strive to reach emission reductions in transportation, buildings, electricity supply, electricity supply, industrial processes and natural and working lands.

A vital part of the plan is to ensure an equitable and strategic transition towards Net Zero. Accordingly, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs worked with various stakeholders across the Commonwealth on the plan to establish an inclusive policy planning initiative was employed.