In order to achieve net zero emissions, the Task Force has set emission reduction goals:
The resulting final Climate Action Plan became a crucial part of Louisiana’s applications to draw down federal funding available from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.
The final plan, Louisiana’s Climate Action Plan (LCAP), was sent to the Governor for his consideration on February 1, 2022. Read the GS4GND comments on the LCAP here.
The Task Force includes scientists, state administrators, academics, oil industry representatives and environmental advocates.
Much of the Task Force represents the interests of the “incumbent” power: oil and gas trade groups, manufacturing and business interests, and utilities, while a smaller portion of members represent environmental justice advocates, clean energy experts, and equity-focused allies; creating tense debates on how emission reduction strategies will play out across the state.
The 23 full Task Force members represent the decision-making body; their work is divided across 6 Committees and 4 Advisory Groups, each composed of both task force members and additional relevant expertise.
This committee will examine how to increase efficiency and reduce emissions at existing power generation facilities, to encourage the growth of renewable energy adoption by LA’s utilities or end-consumers, support the customers of utilities (consumer and industrial) to use cleaner fuels and lower their bills, and pursue other avenues as deemed appropriate.
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This committee will examine how land use decisions can be used to reduce emissions and lower the impacts of climate change and how changes to building codes, building construction, or remodeling practices or materials can increase energy efficiency or otherwise reduce the carbon footprint in the built environment.
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This committee will examine opportunities to lower the emissions from transportation-related sources. Opportunities to promote alternative and renewable fuels, idle-reduction measures, fuel economy improvements, new transportation technologies, and cleaner modes of transportation will all be considered.
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This committee will examine agriculture and forestry practices; conservation measures to promote and maintain natural carbon sinks, blue carbon opportunities such as the implementation of the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan, and other ecosystem restoration efforts; and waste management.
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This committee will examine opportunities to reduce emissions within the manufacturing sector which includes petrochemical manufacturing, petroleum refining, and other operations within the state. This committee will consider opportunities to procure cleaner sources of power to fuel operations, enhance efficiencies and eliminate fugitive emissions, carbon capture and sequestration, and other measures related to this sector.
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This committee will examine opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout the mining, extraction, production, and transportation of oil and gas. This committee will consider opportunities to enhance efficiencies and eliminate fugitive emissions, carbon capture and sequestration, and other measures related to active and inactive elements of this sector.
Check out our blog post on why half-measures and false solutions, such as carbon capture and sequestration, will not bring about the reductions in emissions needed to reach net zero by 2050.
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Provide both general and specific guidance with regard to the efficacy of proposed emissions reduction strategies that arise from within working groups and/or the Task Force, provide information on the interactions across sectors of proposed policies, and help shape and conduct reviews of requests for additional information to guide decision making. Support the development of emission reduction solutions that are rational, trackable, transparent, and based in sound science.
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Identify how potential greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies may mitigate or exacerbate existing inequalities in order to pursue strategies that contribute to a reduction of inequalities and that offer new opportunities to benefit all persons in Louisiana, advise committees and the Task Force on potential impacts of emissions reduction strategies, and assist committees and the Legal Advisory Group in the development of equitable implementation mechanisms that consider all members of society.
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Evaluate the economic impacts of proposed policy changes including the potential for growth or development of new economic opportunities related to the adoption of certain policies or technologies; help consider the larger economic and market forces that may be pertinent to policy discussions; help evaluate potential options for mitigating or overcoming potential negative economic consequences and/or maximizing the positive economic consequences of implementing certain proposed policies; consider workforce implications of proposed policy directions; and suggest opportunities within the world of finance to implement some of the proposed solutions.
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Anticipate legal hurdles that may arise in the design of greenhouse gas emission reduction strategies, assist committees in the development of mechanisms to implement emissions reduction strategies, and advise committees and the Task Force on supplementary strategies and mechanisms for consideration.
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Louisiana is particularly vulnerable to the symptoms of a dangerously warming climate, and we must act boldly and swiftly to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions if we wish to preserve our land and way of life. We have no time for further hesitation or for false solutions.
For Louisiana the impacts of climate change are most severely manifested in the loss of coastal wetlands from sea level rise, increased flooding from tropical and intense rainfall events, rising energy burdens because of extreme weather events, and poor health outcomes because of pollution.
Each of these environmental and health stressors are and will increasingly have negative impacts on families, communities, and regions around our state with disproportionate impacts on those with the fewest resources. The approach that brought us to our current predicament — that of placing corporate profit over people and community, of viewing the Earth as a thing to be exploited — will not provide a solution to the dire challenge we face.
The creation of this task force represents an opportunity to begin the difficult but necessary work of reversing decades of ecological destruction, but it must be guided by commitments to honest accounting, economic and racial equity, indigenous sovereignty, and a radical change in our relationship with the land and waters.
The Louisiana Climate Initiatives Task Force aims to identify action items for reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the Louisiana economy and society. The sector that needs to reduce its emissions the most? Well the sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Louisiana are clear, and industry is the primary polluter.
Industrial processes contribute 66% of our state’s CO2 emissions. On a national scale, industrial processes account for just 17% of CO2 emissions, a stark contrast that highlights the outsized contribution of industry to Louisiana’s carbon pollution. Learn more in LSU’s Briefing Study on GHG Inventory.
Check out the full powerpoint here
The sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Louisiana are clear, and industry is the primary polluter. Industrial processes contribute 66% of our state’s CO2 emissions. On a national scale, industrial processes account for just 17% of CO2 emissions, a stark contrast that highlights the outsized contribution of industry to Louisiana’s carbon pollution.
In fact, greenhouse gas emissions in Louisiana have risen between 8-10% since 2012, while during that same period, U.S. emissions declined by approximately 10%. Any plan to address climate change must emphasize the curtailing of industrial emissions as a primary feature. This means accounting for the greenhouse gas emissions of industrial facilities brought on-line since 2018 and those that are permitted but unconstructed, which will contribute an additional 125 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents annually above those accounted for in the greenhouse gas inventory as presented.
Likewise, the inventory must account for emissions from our state’s thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells and pipelines. Failing to do so will cause the task force to vastly underestimate the reductions necessary to meet our emissions goals. Reducing industrial emissions will also mean curtailing the permitting of new facilities. This will require a coordinated, multi-agency effort across state government, including the Louisiana Public Service Commission, the Department of Environmental Quality, and the Department of Natural Resources, among others.
Greenhouse gas emissions by type:
