N.J. plays leading role in global warming fight; Activists praise state, but say it could do more

TRENTON -- New Jersey could be the national pacesetter on combating global warming, creating jobs even as it retires pollution-spewing sources of energy, environmentalists said Monday.

The Global Warming Solutions Coalition -- a group of 140 politicians, church leaders, business owners, scientists and activists -- praised Governor Corzine's commitment to use 20 percent "clean" energy statewide by 2020. But it said New Jersey can do better.

First, they said, Corzine should support the Global Warming Response Act, which by 2020 would require emissions to fall below 1999 levels. Next, he should look to 2050 with a goal of emitting 70 percent fewer pollutants than current levels.

"The technology is not the problem," said former Gov. Jim Florio, a board member of the tri-state Regional Plan Association. "It's just the will to do these things."

Rather than lose jobs, he said, the energy industry stands to become more competitive and more profitable.

"We can influence way beyond our borders if we band together, if we act," he said. "It is vital that this state not stand idly by."

The Corzine administration has put power consumption high on its agenda: This year it created the post of director of energy savings, and it is working on a master plan to reduce energy use in state buildings. He also supports a pilot study of offshore wind power.

Anthony Coley, the governor's spokesman, said New Jersey is among the seven-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which aims to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants. Also, the state has demanded that by 2016, cars sold in New Jersey emit 30 percent less greenhouse gases -- the result of burning fuel.

"New Jersey should be proud of these steps," Coley said. "The governor tackled this issue when he was in the U.S. Senate and, in the absence of action from the Bush administration, he will continue to do all he can on the state level to combat this global challenge."

In 2001, the Bush administration rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations' effort to address climate change, on the grounds that it would destroy jobs and stifle the economy. In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency declined to impose restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions, saying their effects on the environment were undetermined.

This month, the U.S. Supreme Court is to consider whether the federal government has the authority to regulate the byproducts of burned automotive fuel.

Two months ago, NASA scientists recorded the largest hole ever in the Antarctic ozone layer: 10.6 million square miles, an area larger than North America.

In October, scientists and engineers at Princeton University projected increased floods, droughts and temperature changes by the end of the century. Without a curb on global warming, they said, the Northeast could see winters warmer by 8 to 12 degrees, and summers warmer by 6 to 14 degrees.

At its news conference Monday at the State House, members of the environmental group said that in the absence of federal policy to combat global warming, New Jersey could become nationally prominent. It presented Corzine's office with a petition, signed by 2,300 New Jerseyans, supporting massive cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.

Left unchecked, those pollutants will contribute to environmental havoc in the state's low-lying areas, particularly the Meadowlands, Long Beach Island, Cape May, Atlantic City and the Delaware Bay, group members said. One chart projected that by 2010, 1 percent to 3 percent of the state could be submerged, and another 6 percent to 9 percent left vulnerable to flooding.

Thomas G. Dallessio, New Jersey director of the Regional Plan Association, said the state is at the center of one of 10 so-called mega-regions, or areas of great population and economic growth. To ignore emerging energy technology is to imperil the entire mega-region, he said.

John Cusack, executive director of the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability, said the state could miss its chance to draw scholars and jobs to an evolving energy industry.

And the Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, suggested an even greater need to curb emissions.

"Global warming is one of the most pressing moral issues of our time," he said. "We must seize this opportunity now, for our children and grandchildren."

(SIDEBAR)

Warmer year-round

* Princeton University scientistshave projected increased floods, droughts and temperature changes by the end of the century. Winters in the Northeast could be warmer by 8 to 12 degrees, and summers warmer by 6 to 14 degrees.

To reduce energy consumption, the Corzine administration:

* Has created of the post of director of energy savings.

* Started work on a master plan to reduce energy use in state buildings.

* Supported a pilot study of offshore wind power.

E-mail: younge@northjersey.com