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Today, the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis released a comprehensive report laying out a framework for the United States to lead the fight against climate change. Ranging from electrifying transportation to decarbonizing the industrial sector, the set of recommendations aims for an 88 percent reduction in emissions by 2050.
The report includes conservation and public land management as key to addressing climate change, calling on the U.S. to adopt the goal of protecting 30 percent of America by 2030. "Despite the widespread and significant climate benefits of large landscape conservation, the United States is losing a football field’s worth of natural area every 30 seconds to human modification," the report states. "To ensure the protection and restoration of... important habitat and natural spaces in order to maximize carbon sequestration and biodiversity benefits, the federal government should protect at least 30 percent of all U.S. lands and ocean areas by 2030."
Currently, 12 percent of lands are protected. Getting to 30 percent in the next decade will address climate change, safeguard biodiversity, and protect public health. New polling by the Center for Western Priorities shows that 75 percent of voters in five key Western states—Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, and Nevada—support setting a national goal to conserve 30 percent of America’s lands and ocean areas by 2030 to help protect wildlife and open spaces for future generations.
Public lands are currently a significant source of carbon and methane emissions, adding up to nearly a quarter of all U.S. emissions. The report includes requirements for the oil and gas industry to cut emissions and address methane leaks in drilling infrastructure and pipelines, as well as recommendations to eliminate unfair subsidies and assist traditionally oil, gas, and mining-dependent communities during economic transitions.
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In the West, we understand that a healthy economy and healthy communities depend on a healthy environment. Here and across the globe, nature gives us clean water, food, shelter, medicine, and economic opportunity. Today natural resources drive at least 40% of the global economy. As former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall often said: 'When we plan to protect air, water, wilderness and wildlife, we are in fact protecting ourselves.'”
