Gov. Ned Lamont to sign executive order aimed at lowering Connecticut’s

Gov. Ned Lamont will sign an executive order Thursday morning intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Connecticut’s executive branch, fund resiliency projects and address the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations.

The executive order establishes a series of new goals, such as a commitment that all electricity purchased and generated by the state’s executive branch be zero-carbon by 2030. It also calls for more energy efficient building codes and for the creation of an Office of Climate and Public Health to focus on climate change and health equity.

Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, emphasized Wednesday that the executive order isn’t a replacement for broader legislative action but said it is a step toward achieving the state’s emission-reduction targets.

“To meet the overall targets that we need to be meeting to reduce emissions, we will need new authority that the legislature has, to date, not granted,” Dykes said. “That said, we are laser-focused on ensuring that we are using the tools that are available to us today in a way that’s going to maximize emission reductions.”

In a statement, Lamont said Connecticut “continues to see the impacts of climate change every day in communities across our state” and that his new executive order would help address those effects.

“We need to do everything we can to ensure our working class families aren’t suffering the consequences of inaction both with health and with their wallets,” the governor said. “This executive order takes a whole-of-government approach, sending a message to our residents that climate change is something that affects all of us and we must work together to create the change we seek.”

Lamont’s new executive order comes after DEEP reported in September that Connecticut is not on track to meet its goals for substantially reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and that the state needed to dramatically curb emissions in its transportation and building sectors.

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Dykes on Wednesday touted the executive order’s new building and appliance standards and its commitment to an all-electric statewide bus fleet by 2035.

“These are things we can do within existing authority that will help get us further along the way toward meeting those greenhouse gas emissions by 2030,” she said.

Along with reducing emissions, the new executive order will establish a Connecticut Community Climate Resilience program within DEEP to fund adaptation and resiliency projects. In addition, Dykes said, it will also have “more immediate benefits” such as promoting climate resilient economic development and addressing air quality.

Lamont has drawn criticism from climate activists for not doing enough to curb emissions, particularly after the collapse of the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a multistate a cap-and-invest program that would have reduced transportation emissions while raising tens of millions annually for green infrastructure. The governor said in November that he didn’t think TCI had the votes to pass and that he would no longer push the proposal.

With TCI off the…