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Vermont Governor Reports From Climate Change Conference

Picture of Governor Peter Shumlin
Pat Bradley/WAMC
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin is in Paris this week attending the United Nations climate change conference.  He phoned home Wednesday morning to update regional reporters on the global meeting.
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin was invited by President Obama along with his counterparts from California and Washington state to travel to COP-21 in Paris to talk about their progress at the state level with renewable energy portfolios.    “The president had asked us to come and explain to the world that America is actually making progress despite a climate denier filled Congress who doesn’t want to do anything on climate change.”

Governor Shumlin was scheduled to attend or participate in a number of discussions including the States and Regions Alliance General Assembly and Zero-Emission Vehicle events.  He also gave the opening remarks at the Climate Registry Panel. That was in addition to joining the two other governors for U.S. State Leadership on Climate Change panel.   “In terms of Vermont in terms of moving to renewables, building out solar, doing energy efficiency right, reducing our emissions, we’re able to tell the story of what we’re doing along with Governor Brown in California and Governor Inslee from Washington state and the premier from Quebec and from Manitoba and from Ontario.  But you have to understand that if this agreement happens, which we hope it will,  it won’t really require you to change much before 2020.  And meanwhile what they call the sub-nationals, governors, premiers, mayors, have to push ahead and actually get some work done here because we’re obviously racing against the clock.”

Shumlin, a Democrat like President Obama, is optimistic and surprised by the commitment of the delegates to formulate an emissions compact.   “You have this sense of urgency among world leaders and among the grassroots that I think is unprecedented in human history.”  

Shumlin says while Vermont has made significant progress regulating electricity emissions, it needs to work on the transportation sector, and he is getting inspiration from European initiatives.   “I was speaking with the Minister of Norway.  They’ve moved 15 percent of their fleet now to plug-ins.  And they’re doing it with very smart incentives like giving them advantages in parking, lifting all toll charges, giving them free registration of their vehicles and other incentives and I think Vermont’s going to have to look at incentives like that in order to help us move the needle to move folks from gas driven automobiles to plug-ins. Because that’s a job we’ve got to do.”

Closer to home, the chair of the Vermont Republican Party is criticizing the trip.  David Sunderland sent a letter to the governor’s office Friday requesting details on cost, sponsors, entourage and just why Shumlin had to travel to Paris.   “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to attend by video-conference or by conference call.  Certainly that’s very common these days and it seems like it would make more sense on a lot of different levels. There’s certainly many issues here in Vermont that we believe the governor should be addressing immediately concerning our economy and job growth and the affordability of our state and we think his time would have been better spent here than flying across the Atlantic.”

Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Deb Markowitz accompanied the governor on the trip.  They return to Vermont Thursday night.
 

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