Sponsored by:
Senator LINDA R. GREENSTEIN
District 14 (Mercer and Middlesex)
Senator TROY SINGLETON
District 7 (Burlington)
SYNOPSIS
Requires State to use 20-year time horizon and most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report when calculating global warming potential to measure global warming impact of greenhouse gases.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning measurement of the global warming impact of greenhouse gases and supplementing Title 26 of the Revised Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. Whenever the Department of Environmental Protection, Board of Public Utilities, or any other State agency calculates a global warming potential for the purposes of assessing the global warming impact of greenhouse gasses, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Board of Public Utilities, or other State agency shall use a 20-year time horizon.
b. Whenever relevant to assessing global warming impacts, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Board of Public Utilities, or any other State agency shall use the most recent version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Assessment Report, or a substantially similar, more recent report that addresses global warming impacts at a comparably rigorous level.
c. Whenever the Department of Environmental Protection, the Board of Public Utilities, or any other State agency performs a socioeconomic impact analysis pursuant to section 4 of P.L.1968, c.410 (C.52:14B-4), and that analysis involves the socioeconomic impact of global warming, the agency shall use the lowest discount rates that are consistent with federal guidelines, including the federal Office of Management and Budget Circular A-94, or successor guidance.
2. This act shall take effect immediately.
STATEMENT
This bill would require the Department of Environmental Protection and the Board of Public Utilities, or any other State agency to use a 20-year time horizon to calculate the global warming potential used to measure the global warming impact of greenhouse gasses. The bill would also require the Department of Environmental Protection or the Board of Public Utilities, or any other State agency to use the most recent version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Assessment Report, or a substantially similar report, when relevant. Additionally, the bill would require the Department of Environmental Protection and the Board of Public Utilities, or any other State agency to use the lowest discount rates that are consistent with federal guidelines when performing a socioeconomic impact analysis pursuant to the “Administrative Procedure Act.”
Different greenhouse gases can have different effects on the Earth’s warming, based on the gas’s ability to absorb energy, and how long the gas stays in the atmosphere. The “global warming potential” was developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases, and specifically measures how much energy the emissions of one ton of a gas will absorb over a given period of time relative to the emissions of one ton of carbon dioxide. The larger the global warming potential number, the more that a given gas warms the Earth.
The United States primarily uses the 100-year global warming potential as a measure of the relative impact of different greenhouse gases; however, some scientists use a 20-year timeframe. A gas that stays in the atmosphere for a short amount of time will have a smaller global warming potential when measured over a 100-year span than when measured over a 20-year time horizon, and inversely, a gas that stays in the atmosphere for a long amount of time will have a smaller global warming potential when measured over a 20-year time horizon as opposed to a 100-year time horizon.
Using the 20-year time horizon furthers a policy to address the impacts of global climate change immediately, due to concerns about how short terms changes in climate may create runaway impacts on temperatures in the future. Current scientific research increasingly raises concern for the potential for irreversible changes in the progress of global climate change, such as the release of methane from frozen tundra that could lock in the worsening of global climate change.
The IPCC is the international body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme to provide policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC assessments provide a scientific basis for governments at all levels to develop climate related policies. IPCC Assessment Reports cover the full scientific, technical and socioeconomic assessment of climate change, and undergo multiple rounds of drafting and review to ensure they are comprehensive and objective and produced in an open and transparent way.