While statewide greenhouse gas emissions were up in 2021 and 2022, slowing down the state’s goal of reducing them by 2030, Mother Nature has been working to limit the amount of GHGs in the air.
Natural and working lands — forests, woods, grass, shrubs, crops, wetlands, rangelands and urban green spaces — removed a net 6.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMT CO2e) from the atmosphere in 2021. For comparison, residential and commercial GHG emission levels that year were 5.8 and 4 MMT CO2e, respectively. The transportation sector was the largest sector in terms of emissions, according to federal data.
The natural and working lands sector does have its own emissions too, but it was minimal at just 0.1 MMT CO2e. With the amount of carbon stored by forests and trees across the state at 6.445 MMT CO2e, which could vary with deforestation or tree-planting, the net removal of CO2 equivalent from these lands was 6.3 MMT.
Net removal levels from this sector in 2021 are up from a low of 5.9 MMT CO2e decades ago, but they remain largely unchanged, according to a state report released last month.
It’s the first time since 2009 that the state’s Department of Energy & Environmental Protection included this “carbon sequestration” estimate from natural and working lands in its annual inventory of greenhouse gas emissions.
Data from this sector is not part of DEEP's findings regarding progress towards their 2030 goal. Instead, it's included as a first step in reporting this sector's data in their inventory as directed by a 2021 executive order from Gov. Ned Lamont. While DEEP is working on its own methodology to account for state carbon sequestration in future inventories, this year the estimate they included is based on data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which differs from the state inventory since they may use different accounting approaches, methods and data from states. The rest of the emissions data in the state report is based on the state's methodology.
Connecticut joins most states across the country in seeing a percent decrease in net total emissions after taking into account net CO2 equivalent removal from the natural and working lands sector. At a 16% decrease, Connecticut ranks 15th nationally. Maine, Mississippi and Vermont took the top three spots, all experiencing decreases in net emissions higher than 70% when considering the net CO2 equivalent removal from natural and working lands. Meanwhile, a handful of states saw an increase in their net total emissions. For example, Montana experienced a 19% increase due to its forests experiencing fires and decay, which have turned them from carbon sinks to net emitters of GHGs, according to Montana state documents.
