Governor Wes Moore is ushering in a statewide climate effort through a new executive order, his latest step towards making Maryland achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2045.
Moore signed the order Tuesday afternoon at Henderson-Hopkins school in East Baltimore — which is expected to become the state’s first community solar energy bank by September. The project will allow 175 low-income families in the surrounding neighborhood to access solar power at a lower cost than their current energy bill.
“There's a reason we chose here,” Moore said. “The reason that it was important to be in front of these students is not just simply because people say, ‘Well, we're fighting for their future.’ They're fighting for their own. They're already doing the work.”
Lynn Heller, founder of the Climate Access Fund, said the Solar4Us project will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 27,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
“If you lined up 6,400 passenger cars between here and Columbia, Maryland, the project on this rooftop will be taking away the greenhouse gas emissions of all of those cars driving for a year,” she said.
Principal Peter Kamman called the project “the essence of a community school.” Moore said this community effort is a model for the action mandated by his executive order.
“Addressing the climate crisis cannot be the work of a single department,” he said. “We must and we will move in partnership.”
Every state agency — from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Health — will be required to submit a climate action plan by November 1.
“And each plan is going to center on how we can meet our goals of cutting emissions by 60% by 2031, and achieving net zero in our state by 2045,” Moore said. “It is bold; it is ambitious. And Maryland, we're going to get it done.”
The state department of the environment will review these plans and progress annually. It will also be required to form a subcabinet focused on climate, and to propose new policies to reduce building emissions — including the implementation of zero-emission heating standards and equipment.
Moore said environmental efforts have to also reduce economic inequality.
“We cannot have a climate revolution that actually expands the wealth gap,” he said. “We cannot have a climate revolution that leaves people behind.”
Maryland Secretary of the Environment Serena McIlwain said the work mandated by the executive order to complete a statewide “green transition” will create 27,000 jobs.
Protesters want Moore to do more
McIlwain joined leaders of the Climate Access Fund and Maryland League of Conservation Voters in praising the governor’s climate leadership, calling the executive order “historic” and “comprehensive.”
Outside of the school, a group of four community protesters called on Moore to do more.
“We're here to really draw attention to two important environmental justice issues that Governor Moore's office has not addressed adequately,” said Jennifer Kunze, director of the state's chapter of Clean Water Action.
Her main concern is the state’s trash incinerators.
“We have a big trash incinerator here in the city. That's a really significant polluter for cancer, asthma, carcinogens, and so on,” she said. “And for more than a decade, Maryland has subsidized it as renewable energy, wasting subsidies that ought to be supporting solar and wind.”
Moore’s executive order sets a goal to achieve 100% clean energy in the state by 2035. Kunze said the state legislature considered a bill this year, called the Reclaimed Renewable Energy Act, that would take incinerators off of the state’s subsidized renewable energy list. It didn’t pass.
“We wanted to see Governor Moore stand up and support this bill and get it done in 2024,” Kunze said. “But his administration remained silent. And that was incredibly disappointing.”
Heather Hax, an organizer with Coal-Free Curtis Bay, said she recognizes Moore’s “substantial work” to address the climate crisis. But she also wants him to do more to shut down the CSX Coal Terminal in South Baltimore, which was the site of an explosion in 2021.
“It’s an open-air pier. So if you google the pictures of the coal pier, you just see mounds and mounds and mounds of coal,” Hax said. “And the residents have repeatedly discussed the fact that they can't even open their windows because of the coal particles in the air.”
CSX’s permit to operate the coal pier expired in October. But Hax says the Maryland Department of the Environment has been “dragging its heels” in dealing with it.
“The governor does have some executive power, because this is a state issue, to pressure [the environment department] to either deny or severely restrict some of CSX’s activity because of the fact that it's so damaging to the community,” Hax said.
