NH’s New Climate Action Plan: A Letter from our Board Chair
As of February 2025, New Hampshire is mid-way through creation of its new Climate Action Plan (CAP).
So far, it is highlighting opportunities with the largest impact on slowing climate change, like electric heat pumps and electric vehicles, which also improve our health by improving indoor and outdoor air quality. And it is enumerating the impact of many other actions as well.
But do we have the will to do them?
New Hampshire’s last CAP was undertaken in 2008 by a 29 member blue-ribbon task force under an executive order of Gov. John Lynch, and published in March 2009. The current CAP project is the result of an IRA-funded, $3 million, 4-year Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) from the US EPA to the NH Department of Environmental Services (DES).
Beginning in August 2023, this CPRG planning grant brought together an intrepid group of 6 NH DES hirees and 4 staff from UNH’s NH Listens community engagement program who gathered input from other state agencies, municipalities, numerous stakeholder organizations, consultants and the general public in order to complete the March 2024 submission of a 171-page Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP). This PCAP enumerated NH’s greenhouse gas emissions (GhGe) from their peak in 2005 through 2021 (the most recent data available from the US EPA). It quantified reductions of GhGe achievable by proposed interventions, assessed their impact on NH’s designated low-income/disadvantaged communities (LIDACs), and laid the groundwork for April 2024 applications for CPRG implementation funding, a second phase which resulted in the August 2024 award of $50 million in federal IRA/EPA funding towards installation of heat pumps in NH homes, with an emphasis on LIDACs, as our share of a $450 million New England Heat Pump Accelerator Program.
The third phase of the CPRG has now shifted to drafting a Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP) due December 1, 2025, which will be followed by a period of observation through August, 2027 to see the effect of these efforts on reducing climate pollution in our state.
The 2009 CAP emphatically stated that NH’s climate is changing, and that time is running out to make the necessary mitigations. It proposed 10 overarching strategies, at least 3 of which have shown progress, and 67 recommended actions, including the establishment of a NH Energy and Climate Collaborative to see them through, which had limited success and has since been disbanded. In accordance with “the New Hampshire way”, it contained no required climate-pollution reduction changes, and it did not achieve its primary goal of a 20% reduction by 2025 in NH’s GhGe from our 1990 baseline(1,2). Indeed, since then NH has remained last among New England states in renewable energy requirements, last in clean energy innovation, last in per-resident adoption of solar energy, last in reductions in electricity and total energy usage, last in motor vehicle fuel efficiency, and last in electric vehicle (EV) chargers per population and per road lane mile(2).
Like NH’s 2009 CAP, this year’s CCAP proposals will be “aspirational” only, and indeed the process is under executive orders from NH DES to not make any specific policy, legislative or fiscal recommendations, but rather to highlight opportunities under current policies and statutes.
That being said, progress has been made since 2009, as regional and national policy and market forces have led to a reduction in NH’s climate pollution. As of 2022, since its peak in 2005, our state’s GhGe have decreased by 33%, aided by 2007 legislation (NH RSA 362-F) of Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (RPS) that has required our electricity generation from renewable energy sources to grow from 4% in 2008 to 25% in 2025, and also by our participation in the now 11-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) along with the rest of New England together with NY, NJ, DE, MD, and VA. By phasing out coal and petroleum-burning power plants and adding wind and solar, our NH CO2 emissions from RGGI-regulated power plants dropped 77% between 2008 and 2024, from 6.43 to 1.48 million metric tons. During this period, transportation emissions also dropped 10% with improved vehicle fuel efficiency and the addition of EVs, and residential and commercial emissions dropped 24% with improved building energy efficiency, the latter aided by building standards and proceeds from auctioning RGGI power-plant CO2-emissions allowances directed towards the NH Saves weatherization program(2).
We have also benefitted from being a part of the 6-state New England electrification grid (ISO-NE) while our neighboring states bested us in their commitment to clean energy.
Another federally-funded initiative, Granite State Clean Cities Coalition (GSCCC), has resulted in reducing motor vehicle fuel consumption by 2.1 million gallons per year— albeit this is only 0.2% of the 1 billion gallons of petroleum burned by NH drivers annually.
While NH’s 2024 PCAP reported on the climate change impacts of many activities, including agriculture, waste management, forestry, and industrial processes, it found that the predominance (93%) of NH’s GhGe, calculated in CO2 equivalents, is from burning fossil fuels. (And despite concerning claims, agricultural GhGe are only 1%, only half of which is methane eructation from cows and other ungulates.)
The PCAP also found the following, based on its 2021 data:
NH’s transportation sector has the highest amount of GhGe (46%), 40% of which is from passenger vehicles. Also, most of our particulate matter(PM) pollution, 63% of our nitrous oxide(NOx), and 32% of our volatile organic compound(VOC) pollution comes from NH’s petroleum-fueled transportation.
Heating our buildings produces the second highest GhGe (26% total: residential 17%, commercial 9%), mostly from use of petroleum fuels (residential 84% of emissions, commercial 63%)
Electricity generation accounts for 14% of our GhGe
Together, these three sectors account for 86% of NH’s GhGe
While exploring dozens of potential measures to reduce GhG pollution, the PCAP calculated the following initiatives would have the most impact, in terms of millions of metric tons of CO2 emissions (mmtCO2e) reduced from 2025-2050:
Heat pumps to improve energy efficiency of buildings (47 mmtCO2e) and water heaters (6 mmtCO2e)
Incentivizing EV and plug-in hybrid purchases (2 mmtCO2e)
Weatherization and pre-weatherization to improve energy efficiency of buildings (2 mmtCO2e)
Food waste optimization (1 mmtCO2e)
Taking all this into account, DES is now charged with writing a new comprehensive CAP that fully fleshes out all impactful measures of climate change mitigation. Working with NH Listens, DES is holding monthly 2 hour on-line Technical Input Sessions, open to the public, through May, 2025 on five different sectors: Transportation; Electrical Generation & Use; Commercial & Residential Buildings; Agriculture & Natural/Working Lands; and Industry & Waste/Materials Management.
The goal is to weave a CCAP that, even in the absence of effective state leadership, highlights resources and provides a roadmap for NH municipalities, regional planners, businesses, organizations and individuals to pursue a comprehensive path towards climate change mitigation in our state. Or who knows, maybe even interest the legislature and Governor.
You can sign up for one of the sessions through NH Listens here, or email comments to cprg@des.nh.gov, or sign up for updates on the CCAP process here.
It is an important project, and you will learn a lot.
Paul Friedrichs MD
Board Chair, NH Healthy Climate
