Louisiana’s Climate Initiatives Task Force hopes to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Louisiana is on the path toward reducing emissions to net zero by 2050 and the journey is one you will have a chance to weigh in on later this year.

Louisiana’s Climate Initiatives Task Force was established last year after Gov. John Bel Edwards issued an executive order. It consists of state agency heads and leading scientists on climate change, who are spearheading a state-wide effort to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses in all sectors.

Gov. Edwards set goals to reduce net emissions by 26 to 28% by 2025, 40 to 50% by 2030 and net zero by 2050 in an effort to combat climate change.

The role of the task force, the decision-making body, is to steer the direction of overall climate initiatives and develop and approve interim and final reports. The first interim report was submitted on February 1, 2021.

The task force also consists of several advisory groups and sector committees.

The advisory groups are tasked with looking at the whole process of reducing emissions through several different lenses: scientific, legal, finance and equity. The groups evaluate strategies through their specific subject-matter lens and provide advice upon request.

The sector committees deal with each of the sectors that have CO2 or other emissions and focus on how emissions can be reduced. The committees include:

Agriculture, forestry, conservation and waste
Power production, distribution and use
Land use, buildings and housing
Manufacturing and industry
Transportation
Mining and oil & gas production

The task force will be hearing proposed actions from the public and members of the task force on how to reduce emissions sometime in fall of 2021.

Those wanting to submit a recommendation should follow the action proposal template outlined by the task force. The proposal should include a proposed action overview, impacts of the proposed action, feasibility and an implementation pathway. An official template for proposals will be released soon, the task force said.

The task force will provide a GHG inventory update in mid-2021 and a final report Feb. 1, 2022 which will include recommendations for policy or funding changes.

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