Winston Salem Times

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) says that unless North Carolina enacts aggressive new policies that force the issue, the state will fall well short of its 2025 and 2030 targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

That assessment comes in a report released earlier this week. 

“Gov. (Roy) Cooper (D) has set the stage for strong climate action, but North Carolina must turn those pledges into policy that meets its critical pollution reduction goals,” Michelle Allen, project manager for North Carolina political affairs for the EDF, told the Winston-Salem Journal. “This report makes clear that North Carolina needs to quickly implement solutions that deliver for North Carolina communities.”

Cooper, in 2018, signed an executive order calling for reduction of emissions by 40% by 2025 when compared to 2005 levels, the EDF said, but state policies that were in place by last May indicate that 2025 emission levels will be down only 27% from the baseline 2005 levels.

“Strong, equitable climate policies will help North Carolina reap the economic benefits of the growing clean energy economy, while improving air quality, especially for communities that currently bear a disproportionate share of harmful air pollution,” Allen said, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.

The failure to meet Cooper’s goals is expected to carry over beyond 2025, as well. The Winston-Salem Journal report says EDF is forecasting that the 2030 rate would be between 28% and 38% lower, whereas the executive order was aiming for a 50% reduction by that time.

The EDF’s predicted drop is based on the notion that the NC Utilities Commission succeeds in developing a plan that would reduce emissions from electricity-producing plants by 70% by 2030, when compared to 2005 levels, as the state’s 2021 Clean Energy Plan recommends. That 2021 plan was later backed by the North Carolina General Assembly.