TWO BILLS NOW before the Legislature — H.912, An Act Relative to Forest Protection and H.1002, An Act Relative to Increased Protection of Wildlife Management Areas — would help to meet the Commonwealth’s climate goals and stem the loss of biodiversity. We strongly support their passage as a positive step to address the planetary emergencies we now face.

The Baker administration was counting on hydropower from Quebec as well as the regional Transportation Climate Initiative to help Massachusetts reach its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Both strategies are off the table, at least for now.

The net-zero goal requires reducing annual carbon emissions by nearly half by 2030, and by 2050 match any remaining emissions with carbon accumulation in our forests, wetlands and soils. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report confirmed that over the last six decades, global forests and other land-based natural systems have continued to remove about 31 percent of our annual carbon dioxide emissions.

Forests around the world are being lost or degraded at alarming rates. They are being unsustainably logged for timber, burned as bioenergy, and converted for agriculture, urbanization, and large solar arrays. The result is massive release of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, foregone carbon accumulation, and accelerated biodiversity loss. This is happening here too.

Recognizing these dual emergencies, climate and biological scientists around the world are calling for providing 30 percent of our lands and waters with the highest level of protection — similar to our national parks — by 2030 (known as the “30 by 30” initiative).

How will Massachusetts contribute to this worldwide protection campaign?

The Next-Generation Roadmap for Climate Policy Act passed last year includes important provisions, including protection for environmental justice communities. Although this act addresses “natural and working lands,” it offers nothing to specifically increase the amount of land given the highest level of protection as called for by the 30 by 30 initiative. Meanwhile, less than 2 percent of the Massachusetts land base now enjoys strong, permanent, legal protection. This is not nearly enough!

H.912 and H.1002 seek to update the existing laws regardingthe management of state lands that were enacted as long as a century ago — well before the planetary emergencies we now face.

These bills call for permanently protecting more than 410,000 acres of state-owned lands as parks and reserves under the care of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and about 50,000 acres under the care of the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. Together, they would safeguard 8.5 percent of Massachusetts’ land base and 14 percent of forested land.

The legislation would reduce climate change by allowing public forests to maximally continue accumulating carbon far into the future; preserve large, contiguous tracts of natural habitat needed to sustain the full range of biological diversity; and provide many public benefits such as clean air and water, flood reduction, evaporative cooling, outdoor recreation and tourism, enhanced public health, and spiritual renewal for all residents.

These bills are practical, cost effective, and build upon existing state designations of parks and reserves by conserving intact ecosystems that are influenced primarily by natural processes. They allow management flexibility for public health, safety, and environmental concerns with little or no increased funding for their implementation.

Each bill would create an independent council – one for Department of Conservation and Recreation lands and one for Fish and Wildlife lands – to use the best and latest science to meet climate and biodiversity goals. These councils would include public officials, scientists, and members of the public to review and propose appropriate policies and practices, and with public participation.

With greatly increased numbers of visitors to our state lands during these pandemic times, there is growing appreciation that access to unspoiled natural areas is important for our mental health. Ample access to such areas should be assured for all residents of Massachusetts.

H.912 and H.1002 have broad public support, Forty-six organizations and scientists have signed a letter of endorsement and the esteemed Harvard biologist, Edward O. Wilson — widely respected as a founder of biodiversity science — strongly supported this effort prior to his death on December 26.

“This is the single most important action the people of the state can take to preserve our natural heritage,” Wilson said. “As it has many times in the past, Massachusetts can provide leadership on this issue, inspiring other states across the country to take similar bold action.”

We call on members of the Legislature to pass these bills to protect our natural heritage as Wilson requested as a way to honor him.

William Moomaw is professor emeritus at Tufts University, visiting scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, and a five-time lead author of major Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reports who lives in Williamstown. J. William Stubblefield is a biologist and independent researcher from Wendel. Michael Kellett is the executive director of the regional nonprofit organization RESTORE: The North Woods. He resides in Lincoln.  Janet Sinclair is a co-founder of Save Massachusetts Forests and lives in Buckland. 

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GOVS. CHARLIE BAKER of Massachusetts and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan were featured US officials at the fifth anniversary celebration of the Paris Climate Agreement. Their presence demonstrated that state leaders, from both political parties, are actively battling the climate emergency.

It is therefore baffling that the Baker administration just released new regulations that directly undermine the governor’sand Legislature’s goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The regulations allow wood-burning electric power plants that currently fail to meet Massachusetts’ environmental standards to receive subsidies from ratepayers. But burning wood to generate heat or electricity is unnecessary, will increase carbon emissions, and worsen climate change.

By removing trees from our forests, the proposed regulations also reduce the ability of our forests to remove carbon from the atmosphere. This undermines the governor’s net zero emissions plan that relies on our forests to soak up carbon emitted by any fossil fuels we still use in 2050.  As Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides has noted, “The conservation of the Commonwealth’s forests is critical to meet our ambitious target of net zero emissions by 2050.”

The Department of Energy Resources justifies weakening the existing standards by falsely arguing that burning wood instead of natural gas will reduce carbon emissions.  Wood burning releases more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than any fossil fuel – 75 percent more than natural gas. Therefore, generating heat or electricity with wood immediately increases greenhouse gas emissions more than fossil fuels, worsening climate change.

Eventually, regrowth might remove enough carbon to equal the additional carbon emitted when the wood is burned. But regrowth takes time. New England forests take upwards of a century or more for additional growth to capture enough carbon to breakeven with fossil fuels. Break-even times are far longer for wood bioenergy compared to wind and solar, even after counting  the emissions from making and installing the turbines and panels.

Trees harvested for bioenergy may not grow back. Forest land may be converted to other uses. Wildfire, insect damage, disease, and extreme weather may limit regrowth. Even if forests eventually remove the previously emitted carbon, the extra carbon in the atmosphere until removed accelerates global warming. Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets then melt faster, sea level rises higher, wildfires become more likely, and storms intensify more than if wood had not been burned. Eventual full forest recovery will not replace lost ice, lower sea level, undo climate disasters, or bring back homes lost to floods or wildfires.

Net zero is insufficient. To achieve a safer climate, we must reduce our carbon and other heat-trapping emissions as rapidly as possible and our forests must remove more carbon from the atmosphere than they do now by allowing more of them to continue growing. Burning more of our forests for energy undercuts both goals.

Burning wood for electricity also threatens our health by increasing air pollution, which is particularly harmful to children and adults with asthma and other respiratory and cardiac conditions, including those with lung damage from COVID-19. It primarily affects the poor and communities of color where wood burning plants are often located.  The American Lung Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other leading public health groups “oppose policies that would encourage or expand the use of biomass for electricity production.”

Wood-fired electricity is unnecessary and more expensive than wind or solar, and these clean energy technologies, and energy efficiency, are already cheaper than fossil fuels in many places. A new study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found energy efficiency is cheaper than using natural gas to produce power. With today’s proven technologies—solar and wind, air- and ground-source heat pumps, smart grids, energy storage, net-zero and passive buildings—we can stay warm in winter, cool in summer, keep the lights on, and power our economy without burning fossil fuels or our forests.

Investments in energy efficiency and clean energy generate “co-benefits” by creating jobs and improving health and economic welfare throughout the Commonwealth, especially among low-income and historically disadvantaged communities.

Under the Baker administration’s proposed regulations, utilities will be charging electricity users – all of us – to burn more of our forests, worsen climate change, harm our health, and erode social justice. We urge Baker to preserve his reputation as a champion for climate, health, and justice by withdrawing these flawed regulations. The legislature should also eliminate wood bioenergy from the energy sources eligible for subsidies in the climate legislation they are now considering, and support climate-friendly energy instead.

William Moomaw is professor emeritus of Tufts University, John Sterman is a professor at the Sloan School of Management at MIT and co-director of the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative, Juliette Rooney Varga is a professor and director of the climate change initiative at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Richard Birdsey is a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth.

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ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL IMAGES from last winter’s 100-year storms was the photograph of General Electric’s future Boston home submerged under water. It served as a strong warning of the consequences if we fail to act boldly in the fight against climate change.

In this final month of the state Legislature’s formal session, our representatives have an opportunity to take the common sense next step in this fight and demonstrate the leadership for which Massachusetts is justifiably famous.

Legislation in the Senate and House would establish an economy-wide fee, or price, on the carbon pollution that is threatening our health, our shoreline, our businesses, farms, fisheries, and the well-being of our children. The revenue from this pollution fee, charged to fossil fuel importers, could be captured and returned to residents and businesses, and some could be used to invest in our shift to clean energy.

We already charge a modest fee for this pollution in the electricity sector, through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which helped reduce power plant emissions in the Northeast by 39.6 percent between 2007 and 2015, or twice the national rate. As a result of this and other clean energy policies, power plants now account for less than 20 percent of emissions in Massachusetts.

But that will not be enough to achieve our legal mandate to cut overall greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below the 1990 level by 2050. We must address the other economic sectors that emit carbon pollution, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels and bioenergy. We also must mobilize our natural systems such as forests, wetlands, and soils to sequester additional carbon dioxide.

There are several important policies and programs that can help us achieve our goals, but putting a price on carbon pollution not only is the single most effective tool, it also boosts the effectiveness of every other clean energy policy by providing strong economic incentives to move more quickly toward local efficiency and renewable energy.

Each year, Massachusetts residents and businesses spend about $20 billion to import fossil fuels. Keeping more of our energy dollars in the state by using local energy such as wind and solar will help grow local businesses and jobs and boost the renewable energy sector that will give us a stronger, more reliable energy foundation.

Without intervention, the costs of climate change will continue to increase and become more unpredictable, and our residents and businesses simply cannot afford them. The Northeast will be harder hit by climate change than most other regions, and already our average temperatures have climbed higher than those for the country as a whole. An accumulating body of evidence indicates that the pace of climate change is accelerating faster than scientists had predicted, and our response must become stronger.

Legislators who act to protect our communities will have the clear support of the state’s science, business, faith, academic, and community leaders. The Alliance for Business Leadership, a separate coalition of nearly 200 business leaders, and most recently National Grid have all called for economy-wide carbon pollution pricing.

Nearly 300 faith leaders in Massachusetts have signed a letter endorsing a price on carbon pollution. Separately, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, was among nearly 600 religious and scientific leaders who urged policymakers to address the climate crisis “with the boldness and urgency it requires, with substantive and immediate action.”

The Senate recently passed carbon pollution pricing as part of its energy bill, and the House has completed its energy legislation. Both branches now have a chance to collaborate in conference in order to achieve a fair and equitable carbon pricing policy that works for all Massachusetts residents and businesses.

Other states around the country, especially in the Northeast, are looking to us for leadership, especially neighboring states whose own legislation contains language that triggers action once Massachusetts acts. This chain reaction also can have a huge economic impact: the combined gross domestic product of the states currently considering carbon pricing legislation in the region – Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont – constitutes the world’s seventh largest economy.

At a time when the federal government is unable to act on climate change, Massachusetts must assume its historic role as a leader on the tough issues, and show the way for the rest of the country.

William Moomaw is professor emeritus of international environmental policy at Tufts University and a lead author of five reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body established to provide an objective, scientific view of climate change. Jesse Mermell is president of the Alliance for Business Leadership.

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