Vermont climate office outlines Climate Action Plan update, warns emissions targets off track

Secretary Julie Moore, head of the Agency of Natural Resources, told the Natural Resources & Energy committee that the agency’s Climate Action Office and the Climate Council are on a fast timeline to deliver an updated Climate Action Plan by July 1 while continuing technical work begun after the Global Warming Solutions Act became law.

The update matters because the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) sets statutory emissions targets and reporting deadlines; officials said gaps in data and federal tools mean Vermont will not know final 2024 inventory results for several years and that current indicators show the state is slightly over the 2024 target in key sectors.

Moore described how the Climate Action Office was created after the 2020 law and now has seven staff in addition to the director, and that the office’s work is grouped across greenhouse‑gas mitigation (including scenario modeling and life‑cycle analysis), resilience and adaptation, community engagement, interagency coordination, and support to the Climate Council’s drafting and administrative work. Jane Zarczak, director of the Climate Action Office, said the office manages contracts such as the one…