COLORADO, USA — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said his administration has made achieving 100% renewable energy by 2040 a “top priority.”
The Democrat held a news conference on Thursday afternoon to discuss the state’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Roadmap.
The governor said numerous regional utilities have worked to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and are on track to move to renewable forms of energy in the coming decades.
"In Colorado, we rely on climate-dependent jobs," Polis said, adding that the state experienced three of its largest wildfires ever last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
His office said these are the key steps to achieving the roadmap’s 2030 targets:
- Continue swift transition away from coal to renewable electricity
- Make deep reduction in methane pollution from oil & gas development
- Accelerate the shift to electric cars, trucks, and buses
- Make changes to transportation planning and investment and land use planning to encourage alternatives to driving
- Increase building efficiency and electrification
- Reduce methane waste from landfills, wastewater, and other sources
- Ensure that disproportionately impacted Coloradans benefit from pollution reduction in their communities and new economic opportunities from clean energy
The full Executive Summary and the Roadmap are available here.
"Findings show that meeting the 2025 and 2030 goals is achievable with existing cost effective technologies, but progressing toward these goals will require additional policies beyond the actions the state has taken already," according to the Colorado Energy Office's website.
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