🇺🇸 US state carbon management spotlight: #Massachusetts (MA) 🇺🇸

This is an important week for carbon dioxide removal (#CDR) policy in MA. The MA Carbon Dioxide Leadership Act (#CDRLA) (S.2096) has its Senate hearing on Wednesday and the Assembly hearing on Thursday. MA residents - get involved if you can! https://lnkd.in/eD35p2zW

What are the relevant climate policy frameworks in MA?

🎯In December 2022, MA released their Clean Energy and Climate Plan (CECP) to set the goal of reaching #netzero by 2050 requiring an 85% reduction in GHG emissions from 1990 levels. Though vague in its language, it expects remaining emissions to be removed from the atmosphere and the state plans to develop a #carbon sequestration strategy into future CECPs.

🙌State Senators Cynthia S. Creem and James B. Eldridge, in collaboration with The OpenAir Collective, have introduced a version of the CDRLA (S.2096) in the state. The five year pilot reverse auction programme makes an advance market commitment to purchase carbon dioxide removal (#CDR) starting at 10,000 tonnes of CDR in 2024 and scales up to 50,000 tonnes by 2028. There are hearings happening this week!

🏭State Senator Cynthia Creem and Representative Kay Khan, again together with The OpenAir Collective, introduced S.1982: an Act relating to the use of low-embodied carbon concrete in the state.

What CDR technologies is Massachusetts looking at?

💥The CDRLA is standards based and as such takes a technology agnostic approach, however it will exclude methods that facilitate the extraction, refinement or delivery of fossil fuels, or otherwise perpetuate fossil fuels in any sector.

🌳Forests cover more than 60% of Massachusetts and it is estimated that natural working lands (NWL) in the state are sequestering quantities of CO2 equivalent to over 9% of statewide gross GHG #emissions. However, the state recognizes that achieving Net Zero in 2050 will not be achieved through sequestration in NWL alone.

💡Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts Amherst looks at ocean-based removals, the sequestration of forest carbon in agricultural soils, and the cost-effective operation of a negative carbon emissions power plant concept.

Massachusetts is another state recognising the importance of a portfolio approach to CDR to reach its #netzero commitments. It will be interesting to follow how their carbon sequestration strategy develops over the upcoming years.

📣Shoutout to just some of the companies and institutions driving carbon management in MA: Verdox, Harvard University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Greentown Labs, Clean Energy Ventures, Azolla Ventures, PropellerMCJ Collective, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, New England Biochar, NextChar LLC.

Who else would you like to shout out in the MA climate space? What do you think about the state’s carbon management plans?