RMCO Programs and Reports, page 2

Colorado Climate Project: The First Stage

In our Colorado Climate Project, RMCO is bringing Coloradans together to reduce the state's contribution and vulnerability to climate disruption. We are now in the second stage of that project, seeking adoption and implementation of the recommendations of a blue-ribbon Climate Action Panel we convened in the first stage of the project. The panel's recommendations point the way for actions that can be taken in Colorado to both reduce the state's emissions of heat-trapping gases and to prepare for the effects of the climate change that may be coming anyway.

A separate web site for the Colorado Climate Project provides detailed information on the Climate Action Panel and the full text of its report. This page provides an overview, and information on the second, implementation stage of the project.

In June 2005, RMCO decided to undertake the Colorado Climate Project, inspired by similar efforts by state governments in other states, including in particular Arizona and New Mexico. Ours was the first such effort in the nation undertaken by a nonprofit organization. We recruited 10 Project Directors who in the fall of 2006 appointed the 34 members of the Climate Action Panel and charged them with their mission.

To provide the panel with technical expertise and information, as well as facilitation services, we worked in partnership with the Center for Climate Strategies as many state governments have done (and are doing). This was the first time that CCS worked with a private-sector organization, not a governmental entity, to support a blue-ribbon panel developing recommendations for state action. As part of its work, CCS prepared an inventory and forecast of Colorado emissions of heat-trapping gases. The panel reviewed, approved, and relied on the inventory and forecast in doing its work.

The work of the Climate Action Panel was also supported by six Policy Work Groups, comprised of panel members and others. Altogether, counting Climate Action Panel and Policy Work Group members and alternates, 116 Coloradans participated in developing the recommendations that the panel adopted in September 2007.

The panel recommended 70 actions to reduce greenhouse gases and prepare for the possible effects of climate change. As a result of its year-long work, the panel achieved a remarkable degree of consensus, reaching unanimous agreement on 62 of those recommendations, approving six by super-majority votes (with five or fewer objections), and approving two by simple-majority votes. Also, on 10 recommendations one or more panel members recorded what they called "yes-but" votes, expressing qualified approval of them and recording in the report concerns they had about particular aspects of those recommendations.

Of the 70 recommendations, 55 deal with reducing emissions and 15 with adaptation actions. Of the 55 emission-reduction meaures, 33 were quantitatively analyzed in terms of their emission-reduction potential, and of those 28 were analyzed in terms of their costs (or savings). (Some recommended actions, such as public- education efforts, were not susceptible to those kind of analyses.)

One key recommendation is that the state should set goals to reduce Colorado's emissions by 20% by 2020 and by 80% by 2050, compared to 2005 levels. The recommendations that were analyzed in terms of emission-reduction potential would, by themselves, achieve three-quarters of the reductions needed to meet the 2020 goal. The recommendations that were analyzed in terms of cost-effectiveness would produce overall savings to Coloradans of $2.6 billion by 2020.

In October 2007, the Project Directors accepted the panel's report on behalf of RMCO. As Fort Collins Mayor Doug Hutchinson, a Project Director, said, “This has been a balanced, nonpartisan, centrist process that has produced a strong consensus about the things we can do to reduce our contribution and vulnerability to climate change.”

Within a month, Colorado's Governor, Bill Ritter, Jr., announced his adoption of the emission-reductions goals recommended by the panel and launched a state-government Colorado Climate Action Agenda to achieve them.

Now RMCO is in the second stage of the Colorado Climate Project, supporting state-government and other actions to implement the 69 remaining recommendations of the Climate Action Panel.

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