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Connecticut’s Global Warming Solutions Act in 2008 required the state to reduce statewide emissions by certain levels by certain years.
By 2020, the state had to reduce emissions to a level 10% below 1990 levels. After an amendment made in recent years, emissions in 2030 have to be down 45% from 2001 levels. By 2050, the state has to reduce them 80% below 2001 levels.
The state is not on track to meet those goals, according to a state report and data from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
So far, it’s close to meeting its first goal of 10% below 1990 levels in 2020. In 2018, the most recent year for which state data is available, emissions are down 7.25%, with two years left to get it down to its target of 10%.
The next two target emissions levels are compared to 2001, when levels were at 51.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (MMTCO2e). For it to meet its targets, levels have to go down 45% to 28.27 MMTCO2e by 2030 and 80% down to 10.28 MMTCO2e by 2050.
As of 2018, levels are at 42.2 MMTCO2e, a 17% decrease from 2001 and an average rate of change of .5 MMTCO2e each year.
In the past decade, overall emissions have dropped, but certain sectors are delaying the state’s goal.
Although transportation sector emissions, the largest emitting sector making up 37% of emissions in 2018, have decreased in the past 10 years, levels were higher in 2018 than in 1990.
Meanwhile, commercial and industrial sectors increased emissions in the past decade of data.
Read more: CT has changed in the last decade. Here are 10 charts that show how