Working Group Meeting – April 30, 2009
The Climate Change Working Group's second meeting was held on April 30, 2009 at the NJTPA offices in Newark. Nearly three dozen representatives from Monmouth, Hudson, and Hunterdon counties, the City of Newark, NJDOT, NJDEP, NJ Transit, PANY&NJ, Tri-State Transportation Campaign, NJFuture, NJ Turnpike Authority, NJIT, Rutgers, Municipal Land Use Center at TCNJ, and others participated.
Dr. Anthony J. Broccoli, Co-Director of the Rutgers Climate and Environmental Change Initiative was the guest speaker. He discussed the impacts of climate change on New Jersey’s infrastructure, and narrated a compelling, animated presentation which demonstrated global warming trends beginning in 1970 and projecting out to 2100 (see link at right).
Some of his key points included:
- Despite ups and downs, Dr. Broccoli pointed to an "unmistakable warming trend," and said the climate has been warming at a rather rapid rate for the last thirty years or so.
- About one-seventh of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from the combustion of fossil fuels for transportation. Generation of electricity is the next largest source of GHG.
- Despite NJ's passage of the Global Warming Response Act, which will cut carbon/GHG emissions between now, 2020, and 2050, we need to develop "an energy strategy that can satisfy our demands while also reducing GHG emissions."
- We need to know what our transportation infrastructure vulnerabilities are, given concerns about rising sea levels and flooding associated with climate change trends. We will need "flexible adaptation plans" that could be developed with new and improved technologies, data collection, and measurement.
After Dr. Broccoli's presentation, a number of productive group discussions took place to identify opportunities for ongoing collaboration, including working cooperatively within the Working Group to improve data collection and modeling, connecting VMT modeling and land use, and sharing analytical tools for quantifying / estimating VMT and GHG reduction; in support of local and statewide efforts to meet regulatory targets, and qualify for grant funding.
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For More Information
Resources and documents relating to climate change are at right. For more information or to participate in the working group, contact Jeffrey Perlman at 973-639-8445 or jperlman@njtpa.org.