State's green ideas go nowhere

November 23, 2008

MONTPELIER — One year ago, Gov. Jim Douglas unveiled the recommendations of his Climate Change Commission and laid out ambitious plans to cut Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions while building a “green economy.”

Three ideas stood at the center of those plans: appointment of a Vermont Climate Collaborative to guide research and action; creation of a “Vermont Green Standard” to regulate the multimillion-dollar carbon trading market and create a new business sector for the state; and sale of carbon credits from open land and state forests.

Twelve months later, the Green Standard idea has been abandoned.

Sale of carbon credits from standing forests remains a remote, perhaps receding, hope.

The Vermont Climate Collaborative will not hold its first meeting until next month.

The Douglas administration has taken smaller steps on other fronts since November 2007, including the harvest of more firewood from state forests and support of alternative energy research and testing projects.

But there is no evidence the state has made substantial progress toward — or will reach — the short-term goal set by the governor: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

“We need to stop studying the things we might be able to do and start doing the things we know will help,” said James Moore, clean-energy advocate at the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

Ernest Pomerleau, the Burlington real estate man who chaired the Climate Change Commission, was more optimistic.

“A lot of this stuff is ready for liftoff,” he said of the action steps recommended by the commission, and the new Climate Collaborative will ignite the engines. It will put Vermont’s best brainpower...

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