PCA outlines updated Climate Action Framework, releases fall draft and new modeling

Katie Knudson, climate director at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, told the Environmental Quality Board on Sept. 17 that the state is in the final months of updating its Climate Action Framework and will publish a full draft for public comment this fall. The draft will include a new round of public engagement, updated goal areas (increasing from six to seven), and greenhouse gas emissions modeling funded by the state legislature and federal grants to test policy pathways toward statutory targets. The update matters because Minnesota has statutory emissions targets that the framework is meant to help meet: a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050. Knudson said the framework is intended to marry three priorities'carbon neutrality, resilience and equity'and to lay out programs, policies and projects that together can move the state closer to those goals. Knudson summarized the public-engagement and drafting process to date. The state published its first…