By Jennifer Danis and Zoe Makoul,
This white paper analyzes New Jersey’s implementation gap in both the climate and justice space. Its findings are potentially applicable to the many other states who have set climate and justice goals, without robustly embedding them into their existing legal and administrative landscapes. New Jersey already has GHG reduction targets, a plan, and mapped pathways. While more aggressive tactics and targets may be required to meet evolving scientific knowledge, and cost-effective technology and markets will evolve over time, New Jersey’s climate-alignment tools and pathways are clear. The EMP, the 2020 GWRA 80x50 Report, and EO-274, among other strong state initiatives, together demonstrate unequivocally that enacting an all agency, systematic approach to GHG reductions is essential. Likewise, New Jersey already has done the work to “Further the Promise” of environmental justice. Enacting an all agency, systematic approach to addressing past inequities and ensuring current operations are consistent with environmental justice principles will ensure that this effort yields legally durable results. This paper suggests legislative amendments that will spur expedited, equitable, climate aligned state action.
Read the report, Helping New Jersey State Agencies and Departments Align Their Actions with GHG Reduction Mandates and Environmental Justice Principles, in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.