Students try again for greenhouse gas emission limits in North Carolina

Hallie Turner read the kids’ version of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s book about global warming, when she was 8 or 9, and was inspired to act.

Now a senior at Enloe High School in Raleigh, Turner is making her third attempt to convince the state to set limits on carbon dioxide emissions, a driver of climate change.

Turner, Arya Pontula, a UNC-Chapel Hill sophomore, and Emily Liu, a Stanford University student who went to high school in Chapel Hill, are asking the state Environmental Management Commission to set goals for carbon dioxide reduction of 40%, compared to 2005 levels by 2030, and 88% by 2050.

Turner has been at this for awhile. She filed her first petition in 2014, years before teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg started her climate protests and became a global celebrity.

Liu and Pontula joined Turner for a second try in 2017. Both petitions were rejected. The three appealed both rejections to state court and lost both times. After losing the second court appeal, Turner said she, Liu and Pontula considered their next steps. They filed their third petition in February.

The state has a constitutional obligation to address the climate crisis, Turner said in an interview. “That’s why we continued this effort.”

An international youth movement

The students are part of a youth movement seeking to change state, national and international climate policies. Our Children’s Trust, which is supporting Turner, Liu, and Pontula in their petition, backs actions in other states as well as the federal lawsuit challenging the government’s inaction over climate change. A federal appeals court threw out the lawsuit earlier this year, The New York Times reported. Lawyers for the youth have asked the full appeals court to review the decision, according to Our Children’s Trust.

Turner, who has been attending rallies for years, spoke last year at the Triangle Climate Strike, one of thousands of climate strikes Thunberg inspired.

Turner said Thunberg’s work is important, but the people most hurt by climate change should be at the center of the discussions.

“I do see a lot of parallels between her story and my story,” Turner said. “I also do think that people who don’t have the international acclaim that she does and that people that are more predominately impacted by the climate crisis like poor people and people of color — I think it’s important that they remain the center of the conversation. I think Greta’s work is amazing, but I also think it’s definitely not the only thing people should be talking about.”

About a year ago, Turner attended a Climate Reality Leadership Training in Atlanta run by the organization started by Al Gore, whose work sparked Turner’s interest in combating climate change years ago.

“It was interesting hearing other people’s stories and perspectives,” Turner said. “A lot of it was information I already knew, but it was an impactful way of hearing it.”

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas produced by human activities, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A study published last month said climate change made 2018’s Hurricane Florence worse, The News & Observer reported.

Ryke Longest, director of the Duke Environmental Law & Policy Clinic, is representing the students.

The new petition attempts to address the objections commissioners raised about the previous petitions, Longest said in an interview.

The new petition includes an argument why approval would not violate a state law known as the Hardison Amendment, which says the state cannot adopt an environmental rule that is more strict than a federal rule or law.

The law “does not prohibit the Commission from granting a rulemaking petition or initiating the rulemaking process,” the petition says. Additionally, the state law does not apply to carbon dioxide targets because there is no comparable federal rule or law, the petition says.

A complement to state Clean Energy Plan

The petition says creating an inventory of carbon emitters, carbon budgets and targets for carbon dioxide reduction complements Executive Order 80, which Gov. Roy Cooper signed in 2018, and resulted in the Clean Energy Plan. That plan, completed last year, has a goal of carbon neutrality for electricity producers by 2050.

The petition proposes that the Environmental Management Commission set targets for reaching the carbon dioxide reductions. The state Division of Air Quality, part of the NC Department of Environmental Quality, would take an inventory of carbon dioxide emitters and develop a carbon dioxide budget to meet the targets.

The Division of Air Quality already publishes a greenhouse gas inventory that its website says will be updated every two years.

The Division of Air Quality publishes the inventory voluntarily, Longest said. The proposed rule would make its publication mandatory.

The petition proposes that stakeholders, including the NC Utilities Commission, industry representatives, coastal property owners, climate activists, academicians, community leaders, and others be invited to help develop the carbon dioxide inventory and budget.

“This would create an open, participatory process for those who care about costs,” Longest said.

GOP legislature isn’t sympathetic

Every five years, the Environmental Management Commission would consider changes to rules and laws need to reach targets.

Even if the Environmental Management Commission approves the petition, advancing plans for greenhouse gas reductions, the legislature can decide to disallow the rule.

Republicans in the legislature have shown little interest in requiring greenhouse gas limits. GOP legislators had little public response to the Clean Energy Plan. House and Senate bills filed last year that would have all retail sales of electricity come from renewable sources by the end of 2050 never moved from committees.

The possibility that the legislature can reject the rule doesn’t mean that the students shouldn’t try to get it approved, Longest said.

“This particular rule is exactly the kind of rule we’d like to see as just plain old good government,” he said.

Turner said people ask if she’s hopeful or if she gets discouraged.

“My answer to that is, it doesn’t matter if I’m hopeful, just as I don’t think it matters if today’s leaders are hopeful,” she said. “What matters is that they do what’s necessary to take action.”

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.

This story was originally published March 7, 2020 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Students try again for greenhouse gas emission limits in North Carolina."