• Category: Colorado
• Published Date

Governor Ritter announced a new climate action plan, with goals similar to other states in the US and the aim of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions 80% below current levels by midcentury. One part of this plan is to adopt stricter vehicle emissions standards, which naturally will present problems to lovers of large, gas-guzzling SUVs (and is thus one of the more controversial parts of the plan). However, the plan is relatively weak compared to what other states are doing, so there's really little cause for complaint. For example, Colorado will not adopt adopt California's level of automobile emissions standards. The first step in the plan is to reduce CO2 levels to 20% below 2005 levels by the year 2020 (Arizona is aiming for a 45% reduction, Oregon 44%, New Mexico 33%,California 28%, and Washington 28%, for example). It's worth reading more about this (click for the Denver Post article or the Rocky Mountain News article), as global warming is a serious issue affecting future generations in many ways.