Southeastern States Face Warming World W/O Plans, Commitments, Spending Or Emission Targets

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Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg two years ago pledged to cut his city's carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2050. But the city government has no solar panels on its buildings, no city vehicles that run on electric power or cleaner fuels, and it still hasn't pushed its electric utility, Dominion Energy, to supply more renewable electricity. Taking steps like converting to electric vehicles costs money, Tecklenburg said. "We're consumers like anyone else, and we're mindful of spending people's tax dollars," he said.

But the state is already experiencing the effects of climate change. Statewide, four hurricanes and a major flood in the past five years have swamped South Carolina, killing 31 people, pushing toxic chemicals into people's yards and causing billions of dollars in property damage. Heavy rains have flooded crops, causing state financial bailouts. And droughts have strained some drinking water supplies. South Carolina still has no comprehensive climate plan, which means there is no coordinated effort to cut greenhouse gas pollution, limit sprawl, develop wind energy or educate the public on how to adapt to the changing climate. A spokesman for South Carolina's Republican governor, Henry McMaster, said, "Private industry is more than capable of adapting to a 21st century economy without imposing more regulations."

In Savannah, Georgia, no one was routinely counting greenhouse gas emissions from the nation's fourth busiest seaport. The Port of Savannah has no emission reduction goals because, officials said, it is not not required. In North Carolina, a Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, has adopted a clean energy plan that puts his state's power sector on a path toward carbon neutrality by 2050. Cooper's plan also calls for, among other things, tax credits for electric vehicles and converting the state's fleet to electric vehicles, but North Carolina's Republican Legislature seems unlikely to cooperate.
The state's fragile, hurricane-hammered coast is dotted with small towns without the resources they need to adapt to more flooding and extreme weather.

In Birmingham, Alabama, residents are pushing city leaders to "lead the way in confronting the threat of climate change." But so far there's little action by city government. Take transportation as an example: "We're sort of caught in this vicious cycle," said Darrell O'Quinn, a Birmingham City Councilor. "Single-occupancy vehicle use is so high because we don't have other options, and we don't have other options because single-occupancy vehicle use is so high." Many Alabama cities and universities are setting sustainability or emissions reduction goals without even mentioning the words 'climate' or 'carbon.' That political aversion to those words is not uncommon in the Southeast.

In West Virginia, flat land, in short supply, is putting homes and businesses in floodplains at risk. But a statewide office to boost resilience across the state, set up after devastating 2016 floods that killed 23 people, has made little progress. It's hard to develop a meaningful response "unless we have honest conversations about climate change and what it means for West Virginia," said hydrologist and climate scientist Nicolas Zegre, of West Virginia University. "But," he said, "climate change is largely absent from conversations in Charleston," the state's capital.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23012020/louisville-lge-southeast-carbon-emissions-climate-change